Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of The Mona Lisa, also called La Gioconda has captured society’s collective imagination. Her hold on the audience is so intense there is a widely known phenomenon called, The Mona Lisa Effect referring to the experience of feeling like the subject of an image is looking directly at the viewer no matter where one is standing in the room. Simply put, people feel like Mona Lisa is staring at them and her eyes follow them around the room. According to scientists at Bielefeld Unversity in Germany, La Gioconda does not look directly at the viewer. Her gaze is said to be about 15 degrees to the right looking at the viewer’s ear or over their shoulder. They concluded that ironically, The Mona Lisa does not demonstrate the Mona Lisa effect.

Arts Madness Tournament links:

Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast.

Connect with me:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Tiktok

Support the show:

Merch from TeePublic | Buy me a coffee

As always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices