Over this past weekend, my roommates and I toured almost all of the main Paris highlights, covering enough distance to walk across the diameter of Paris and back. The moment we were set free in the city, our first stop was to visit the illustrious museé de Louvre. After getting sidetracked in every room along the way by some masterpiece or another, and following some other equally confused tourists, we finally made it to the Mona Lisa. I had to push some innocent bystanders out of the way but was able to make to the front, directly in front of Mona herself, and she did not disappoint (Figure 1).
Over recent decades, research in the visual system and neural processing of visual arts has grown. There are novel insights into how visual information is sent to the brain, as well as how different pathways and even disorders help us understand how art is viewed and created. Ironically, this path has led us to much of the same conclusions and tactics that visual artists have been using for centuries. Leonardo da Vinci’s perhaps most renowned masterpiece is often characterized by her overall sense of ambiguity. Whether intentional or not, Mona Lisa appears almost androgynous, her gaze appears to follow you without making direct eye contact, and she sits there with the tiniest suggestion of a smile. The most typical question you are supposed to ask yourself while looking at her is whether or not she is smiling. Art historians will call her coy, playful, or confusing and accredit this to an intentionally blurry depiction of her mouth. However, work by renowned neurobiologist Dr. Margaret Livingstone may provide a purely scientific explanation for this, and has helped me apply my vast NBB301 visual system knowledge.
In a paper published in 2000, Dr. Livingstone describes the spatial resolution as a function of the visual system. The highest spatial resolution occurs at the center of the eye when light falls upon the fovea (Livingstone 2000). This is responsible for the sharp, color image we see. Far fewer receptors fall outside the fovea along the retina, producing a much lower spatial resolution. When we decrease the resolution of the Mona Lisa (Figure 2), indicative of the image produced by your peripheral vision, we can see that her face acquires a much more cheerful quality (Livingstone 2000). I reproduced these effects myself and her smile is much less debatable when looking at the low-resolution image alone (Figure 3). Therefore, as you look at Mona’s face, you may not be sure if she is smiling, smirking, or simply resting. As you begin to look away, your peripheral vision picks up on this image of a smile, responsible for producing her famous “elusive quality” (Livingstone 2000). Finally, you look back again, but are once again find yourself staring at a confusingly passive face.
