The mysterious Mona Lisa smile

The Mona Lisa was my raison d’être for travelling to The Louvre in Paris. Ever since I was a child, there had been talk about her eyes. They seemed to follow you around a room and they hinted of magic. There were comments I’d heard about her approachable smile that was visible from every angle.

So, by the time I’d hit my 20s, I wanted to know what all the fuss was about this sixteenth century portrait of a lady who was painted so lovingly by Italian Renaissance painter Leonardo da Vinci.

That name, Leonardo da Vinci, it can carve a groove in one’s mind as soon as one hears of it. In fact, every time that I’d dined at Da Vinci’s restaurant not far from Dubai International Airport, the name seemed to mingle with hearty bowls of mushroom soup and baked tagliatelle pasta that I’d savoured there among their evening din.

Mona Lisa. I’d heard a song about her eyes and smile, a rather peppy number by Shakin’ Stevens who was a singer in the 1980s. Great tune — we’d danced to it at parties. However, when Julia Roberts starred in a film called Mona Lisa Smile in 2003, my curiosity about this woman’s expression had surged through the roof. That’s it. Musée du Louvre, here I come.

Art fascinates, this we know. But why and how this dalliance works with our imagination soon found me jostling for a spot at the grand hall of the world’s largest museum that housed the Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci, dear man, what have you done to cause this great stir down the centuries? I wondered about this before getting close enough to Madame Mona.

Sure, I’d seen prints of this painting several times before. She’s lovely. Profoundly graceful. No eyebrows, though. I swayed with caution to check whether her eyes followed. Maybe, yes? Studied her secretive smile. It was still restful and calming to match the poised arrangement of her fingers.

I’d seen her curly hair up close, and glanced at her face as if I’d expected her to say something to me by now. She must have noticed how I’d been searching through this painting that she lay within — and sensed my undulating quest for why she commands such adoration without even a fraction of a jewel upon her person.

I’d cast my eyes upon the misty backdrop, dreamlike, and which appeared to hold a tale behind its veil. Leonardo bothered to paint an arched bridge in the distance, and a rather striking zigzag pathway. For an art lover and student, I’d wondered that day if a bout of daydreaming had caused me to miss out on certain chapters, lectures? By then, I’d peered at her casually draped cloak and wooden seating, long enough by then to desire chocolate.

I’d bought myself a print from a boutique at The Louvre along with some French chocolat, and sat down to study this artwork. My husband by now was rather amused and began to call me ‘Mona darling’, with reference to a comical desi character.

Intrigued at my allure, he pointed out that it was as if I was expecting Leonardo to magically appear and reward me for my commitment by handing me a clue.

“Big Leo hasn’t used several colours from the paintbox”, I’d mumbled, “and that must be a clue, right?”

“Of course, it is, Miss Marple”, said my amused husband.

I bit more chocolat. It honestly wasn’t tasting as good as my curiosity was at the time. But the chocolat was in a matching shade of brown to Madame Mona’s cloak that may somehow open a gateway to what I’d wanted to know.

Twenty years after that day, I’ve discovered much more about this priceless painting. Mona Lisa’s secret smile. The myths of time, and what Leonardo da Vinci was fascinated by after journeying across an epic search, with his copious drawings and notebooks, through the mist and across the bridge and from the zigzag pathway to the simplicity of knowing what Marcel Proust’s iconic book calls: ‘À la recherche du temps perdu’, which in English translates to ‘In Search of Lost Time’.

Melissa Randhawa is a noted UAE-based journalist