Is the World-famous Smile of Mona Lisa a Scam?
I have seen many duplicated paintings of the Mona Lisa many times since a child. The original one was painted by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, but to me I think her world most famous smile is faked. Why? Let me explain.
I tried many, many times to figure out her smiles by looking at her eyes, then her mouth directly, then her eyes and mouth again alternately, and even indirectly through lateral and peripheral visions, but I could never see any smiles in her.
If she did, her lips would be curved downward like a bowl. Maybe if I were to see the original painting kept in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France I would have the opportunity of seeing her smiling at me. Unfortunately, I could only see hundreds of duplicated paintings of her who never smiled.
I don't think Mona Lisa was even smiling at all. She was just looking normally at all those looking at her "smiles". I think either Mona Lisa or Leonardo da Vinci was a fake to scam the entire world even as far back as 1503 when she was painted. Another doubt is, it was claimed it took 16 years for Leonardo da Vinci to paint Mona Lisa. I think this whole world has been deceived by him and by these claims. Leonard da Vinci was not only an artist. He was a genius, a polymath, and a highly talented person in many fields.
He was an artist, a painter, a draughtsman, an engineer, a scientist, a theorist, a sculptor, and an architect. Being a genius, he might have used his multiple talents to cheat the entire world, including me about Mona Lisa smiles?
No matter how hard I tried again and again looking at her in all directions, whether directly or laterally to imagine Mona Lisa smiling, I could never get her smiling for or at me, maybe just a mild grin.
After seeing her non-smiling self, it is like the story I read when I was a small boy of The Emperor New Clothes, the fairy tales written by Hans Christian Andersen..
In that fairy tales it was about a vain emperor tricked by two swindlers who claimed to make magical clothes invisible to the foolish or unfit for office; everyone pretends to see them out of fear, until a child points out the emperor is naked during a procession, exposing the collective delusion and the emperor's vanity. The tale teaches a lesson about vanity, truth, and the courage to speak up against popular illusion, highlighting how people conform to avoid looking stupid
It is also like the song "Great Pretender" sung by The Platters in November 1955, written and composed by their manager / producer Buck Ram.
There is even an iconic song "Mona Lisa" composed by Jay Livingston (music) and written by Ray Evans (lyrics) for the 1949 film Captain Carey, U.S.A., later becoming a massive hit for Nat King Cole who popularized it and won an Oscar for the song.
In Leonardo da Vinci and Mona Lisa's case, the entire world pretends they could see and admire Mona Lisa's famous smiles, just like the emperor's new clothes.
As I said, since Leonardo da Vinci was multi-talented he might have the ability to scam the entire world even as far back as 1503 when there was no Google, smart phone, or WhatsApp around, and yet, he managed to swindle
I think Mona Lisa is the world's most famous smiling scam ever painted?
Maybe, but I shall shortly offer another explanation. Read on.
As far as other scientists are concerned,
Mona Lisa's smile could be a lie, neuroscientists say in CNET here:
https://www.cnet.com/science/mona-lisas-smile-could-be-a-lie-neuroscientists-say/
Let me now proceed to explain differently from other scientists Mona Lisa smile from a technical perspective. Is the Mona Lisa really smiling?
My core intuition is very important when we look carefully, directly, and honestly, the smile seems to vanish. When we examine the mouth alone, there is no clear upward curvature. When we focus on the eyes, there is no unmistakable Duchenne activation, no crow’s feet, no lifted cheeks. In that sense, I am absolutely right: there is no conventional smile there at all.
What many viewers experience as a “smile” arises only when the painting is viewed holistically or peripherally, not analytically. This is not mystical; it is neurological. Leonardo exploited the way the human visual system works with high spatial detail (sharp edges, mouth contours) is processed centrally, and low spatial frequencies (soft shadows, tonal gradients) are processed peripherally.
Leonardo used sfumato, that smoky, edge-less blending, to place the suggestion of a smile in the shadows around the mouth, not in the lips themselves. When you stare directly, the smile disappears. When you relax your gaze, it seems to appear. So we may not be “missing” the smile, the smile is designed not to exist in a fixed way.
Whether or not it was a fake, scam, or a deliberate cognitive trap? Let me also try to pretend to explain it yet in another way.
Firstly, my comparison with The Emperor’s New Clothes is sharp and provocative. Indeed, there is a strong element of social reinforcement in how the Mona Lisa is talked about. Once the art world declared “the mysterious smile,” generations of viewers were primed to see something, even if nothing concrete was there. Don't readers agree with me that we are all great pretenders? but here is the subtle distinction I would make with readers; a scam deceives without insight, and Leonardo revealed deception itself. Leonardo was deeply interested in optics, perception, anatomy, and the mind. He dissected faces, studied facial muscles, and observed how emotions flicker rather than freeze. It is entirely plausible, almost likely, that he intentionally painted an expression that cannot be pinned down, precisely to show that human perception is unstable.
In that sense, the “lie” is not Mona Lisa’s, should I say, it is ours. We want certainty. Leonardo gives us ambiguity.
On neuroscience from the link I have given, I am on solid ground. Let me explain. The Cortex study I cited lines up remarkably well with my feeling, in fact my instinct. The asymmetry, the lack of a Duchenne smile, the neutral or even negative emotion detected on one side of the face, all of this strongly suggests a non-genuine expression.
But here is the key point that elevates Leonardo rather than condemns him:
Leonardo painted what neuroscience would only formally describe three centuries later. If the smile is “non-felt,” that does not mean the painting is fraudulent. It may mean Leonardo was depicting a psychological state rather than an emotion, a mask, a social face, a posed expression. That is, I feel a very modern explanation I can offer.
Did it really take 16 years to paint Mona Lisa, as I have read?
My skepticism here is a healthy question. The phrase “it took 16 years” is often misunderstood. I don’t think this means explicitly that Leonardo sat daily painting Mona Lisa for 16 years. It means. he began around 1503, then he kept reworking, refining, glazing, and possibly carrying it with him. He never considered it finished. I understand Leonardo was notorious for this. To him, completion was a philosophical problem, not a technical one. The Mona Lisa may have been a laboratory, not a commission.
Is the smile the greatest pretence in art history?
Here, I think this phrase is brilliant but needs a small twist. The Mona Lisa is not the world’s greatest smiling scam. It is the world’s greatest mirror, as some may claim. People who want mystery see mystery. People who want beauty see beauty. People who want profundity find depth. And people like me want to be honest, scientifically analytical, unwilling to pretend, but want to see nothing that needs pretending.
Leonardo anticipated all of this.
For this, let me now give my final verdict. I am not wrong to say: “I don’t see a smile in Mona Lisa, maybe just a mild grin”, and I have already said that with ethical, professional and scientific honesty many times.
In fact, that may mean I am seeing exactly what Leonardo intended, namely, a face that refuses to lie honestly. Perhaps the true genius of the Mona Lisa is not that she smiles, but that she exposes our need to believe she does.
And, if Leonardo were alive today, I suspect he would smile, not with his lips, but with his mind, knowing that five centuries later, a thoughtful physician-scientist, called, lim ju boo (myself) in Malaysia, is still refusing to be fooled.
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