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## The Sitter and the Smile: What the Painting Is
A long article about the theft of the Mona Lisa requires at least a section devoted to the painting itself — what it is as a work of art, independent of its subsequent celebrity.
Leonardo da Vinci worked on the painting over an extended period. The sitter — likely Lisa Gherardini, though the identification remains unconfirmed by documentary evidence — is depicted in a three-quarter pose against a background landscape that uses the sfumato technique Leonardo developed to its greatest known expression. Sfumato — from the Italian for “smoke” — describes a method of building up tonal gradations through very fine layers of translucent paint applied with the fingertips as well as brushes, creating transitions between shadow and light so gradual that no hard edge is visible. The effect is a softness of appearance that gives the face its particular quality of seeming to shift expression depending on where the viewer’s focus rests.
The ambiguity of the expression — famously described as a smile that seems to change, to appear warmer or more knowing or more distant depending on the viewing angle and the viewer’s attention — is a result of the technique rather than any mystical property. The shadowed corners of the mouth and eyes are built up through the same sfumato layering, so that the specific resolution of the expression depends on where the eye is looking in the picture.
The landscape behind the figure is not a specific identifiable Italian location. It is a generalized and somewhat fantastic terrain of paths, water, and mountains — a background that contributes to the otherworldly quality of the image. The figure’s hands, in the lower portion of the painting, are painted with the same precision as the face, and their position — resting quietly, one over the other — contributes to the overall impression of composure.