Transcription: This may be the most debated portrait in history. What is the meaning of a celebrated smile? Leonardo ensures that we never can tell, veiling clues at the eyes and mouth where normally we establish emotion. Ambiguity is the essence of his technique. He applies near transparent washes layer upon layer. The image emerges imperceptibly, like soot gathering on glass held over a fire. the background offers a second portrait of the life of the earth. While Mona Lisa seems almost unnaturally still, here everything is in flux. Rivers carve new valleys, replenish lakes, deposit their silt. The great ge ...
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