{"id":175,"date":"2018-06-01T21:38:10","date_gmt":"2018-06-01T21:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/?p=175"},"modified":"2022-05-30T08:54:39","modified_gmt":"2022-05-30T08:54:39","slug":"175","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/2018\/06\/01\/175\/","title":{"rendered":"Mona Lisa Smile"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0The moment we were set free in the city, our first stop was to visit the illustrious muse\u00e9 de Louvre.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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).<\/p>\n

Over recent decades, research in the visual system and neural processing of visual arts has grown.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Ironically, this path has led us to much of the same conclusions and tactics that visual artists have been using for centuries. \u00a0Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s perhaps most renowned masterpiece is often characterized by her overall sense of ambiguity.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The most typical question you are supposed to ask yourself while looking at her is whether or not she is smiling.\u00a0 Art historians will call her coy, playful, or confusing and accredit this to an intentionally blurry depiction of her mouth.\u00a0 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.
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\nIn a paper published in 2000, Dr. Livingstone describes the spatial resolution as a function of the visual system.\u00a0 The highest spatial resolution occurs at the center of the eye when light falls upon the fovea (Livingstone 2000<\/a>).\u00a0 This is responsible for the sharp, color image we see. \u00a0Far fewer receptors fall outside the fovea along the retina, producing a much lower spatial resolution.\u00a0 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<\/a>).\u00a0 I reproduced these effects myself and her smile is much less debatable when looking at the low-resolution image alone (Figure 3). \u00a0Therefore, as you look at Mona\u2019s face, you may not be sure if she is smiling, smirking, or simply resting.\u00a0 As you begin to look away, your peripheral vision picks up on this image of a smile, responsible for producing her famous \u201celusive quality\u201d (Livingstone 2000<\/a>).\u00a0 Finally, you look back again, but are once again find yourself staring at a confusingly passive face.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1. Visit to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Figure 2. Image from Livingstone Lab (Livingstone Lab, Harvard<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Figure 3. Photo taken at the Louvre (left) and edited to resemble the image produced by the peripheral system<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0The moment we were set free in the city, our first stop was to visit the illustrious muse\u00e9 de Louvre.\u00a0 After getting sidetracked in every room along the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Mona Lisa Smile”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5364,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paris-2018","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5364"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions\/207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/summerinparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}