Da Vinci seems to be a popular theme in exhibitions these days, with one about his life and his multi talents as an artist, mathematician, scientist and architect at the ArtScience Museum (more on that another day) and this focusing entirely on an earlier version of Mona Lisa which was discovered in 2012. It's been said that the Mona Lisa is one of the most recognised female faces in history and it's common knowledge that the painting is displayed at The Louvre in Paris, France. As such, when you hear about this so-called "Earlier Mona Lisa", you will probably wonder, where did this painting come from and is it really from Da Vinci himself?
This exhibition is held at the Arts House at the Old Parliament, the oldest surviving government building in Singapore. To be honest, as a Singaporean, I had never visited this place before so if not for this exhibition, it might have taken me longer to find out about this place. I thought it was a great venue to hold this exhibition especially with the British colonial facade of the building projecting an air of class and elegance. The exhibition gallery isn't too big which is a plus too because you don't have to walk too much just to see everything. However, be warned that there is quite a lot of content to go through but there are chairs provided in the gallery for you to sit down while watching the videos on your personal tablet.
Unlike most exhibitions which have the content displayed on the boards/walls and have some interactive stations littered along the way, the experience here is very much personalised. You get a free tablet to use at the entrance with headphones which means that you can control the pace which you go through the exhibition and can replay videos if need be. There are transcripts for the videos too so understanding the content (sometimes in heavily accented English) is not an issue. And since Singapore is a multilingual society, it's good that they have the content in English and Chinese. Ideally, it would have been good to have it in Malay and Tamil too for all races but I guess since this is the first stop of the exhibition, the organisers probably did not consider this or there were constraints preventing this from being a feasible option. Might be something worth considering if they move the exhibition to another place where there is more than one predominant language in use. Another good feature I found about the tablets was the segregation of content meant for children and adults. To be honest, if the kids were to use the adult version of the tablet, it might be too difficult for them to understand the content and their attention span might be shortened as a result. I didn't get access to the children's version though but from what I observed from the kids who were there with their parents, they seemed to enjoy the content which had cartoon characters popping up on the screen. Last but not least, having the content to yourself in the form of the tablet and headphones meant that there was little noise in the gallery other than the sound of footsteps so the entire experience was rather comfortable.
To put things simply, there are three main sections in this exhibition i.e. the historical evidence pointing to why the Earlier Mona Lisa or otherwise known as Isleworth Mona Lisa was regarded as Da Vinci's work and why it was believed to be drawn before the Louvre version that's widely known, the scientific and mathematical tests proving why the Earlier Mona Lisa was indeed Da Vinci's work and last but not least, the views of both paintings from experts. In order not to spoil the fun for you who have not been to the exhibition, I wouldn't go into great detail on the content. Instead, I would just like to share my thoughts on this exhibition.
First of all, I think I finally understand the meaning of "a picture is really worth a thousand words". I don't consider myself really artistically-inclined and the last paintings I did were back in school which is pretty long ago. I don't remember giving much thought to drawing or painting at that time since it was usually more of a whimsical nature i.e. whatever inspiration I had then, it was translated into what I drew or there was a preset theme to adhere to. However, when you look at the supporting evidence especially about the analysis of Da Vinci's drawing style and the mathematical theories embedded within, it struck me that perhaps a picture is really not just what it seemed on the surface and that the artist could have done a lot more to put in hidden themes or knowledge which were not evident to most people. To think that the Mona Lisa Foundation could have done so much work in such a short period of time to put together such a compelling exhibition! It was truly a very enriching and educational experience and one of the most enjoyable exhibitions I've been to in recent years.
Secondly, the concept of "seeing is believing" was what hit me after seeing the expert views section and the real painting. Although the evidence presented is rather compelling, there are of course people who may choose to believe otherwise for one reason or another. What I find quite bewildering is that the experts who chose not to believe that the Earlier Mona Lisa was painted by Da Vinci actually refused to see the painting in person which would have been the perfect opportunity for them to offer their counter arguments. Unfortunately, their resistance to do so seems to suggest a reluctance to accept the notion that the Louvre version may have been the second Mona Lisa painting rather than based on sound facts. That is why the quote from Da Vinci shown at the end of the exhibition seems to be reflective of the situation that the Mona Lisa Foundation is facing with these experts who hold different views without observing the real painting: "
There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.".
Last but not least, after visiting this exhibition, it got me thinking about how the revelation of the Earlier Mona Lisa would affect the Louvre version in any way or would it not? Frankly speaking, both paintings may have been based on the same woman but there are significant differences between the two due to the gap in time when they were painted. Besides, the Earlier Mona Lisa is regarded as an unfinished piece of work. As such, in my personal view, even if the Earlier Mona Lisa exists, it wouldn't actually threaten the Louvre version in terms of the interest level or undermine its value as a Da Vinci work. Then again, in life, when there are two similar people or things, they may actually be able to co-exist without one being regarded as better than the other. However, because there is always the desire to compare and be regarded more highly than the other, it may not work as ideally thus there would be differing views on which is better. However, the impression I get from this exhibition is that, the Earlier Mona Lisa isn't positioned to be a replacement or a more superior version of the same painting by Da Vinci. I feel that it can co-exist with the Louvre version as originals from Da Vinci and there really isn't a need to say which is better.
If you have the time and would like to find out more about this painting, do check out this exhibition before it ends on 11 February. The next stop will be in Hong Kong from end March to early June. For more details, you may wish to visit this
website.
