Nick RossiterThinkers

The Mona Lisa is a scientific work, a distillation of his discoveries in the natural sciences, in that it connects human beings and the natural world with the mysterious female at the centre of creation. That is, it connects a pregnant Mona Lisa with a pregnant landscape in the background.

The Mona Lisa is a strange work of art, historically. Her dress is utterly plain and timeless and, despite the fact that she is a married woman, she wears no jewellery, not even a wedding ring.

The Mona Lisa is strange in that her gaze, instead of modestly averting her eyes, she looks directly out towards us with the knowing air of someone who, much to our irritation, knows something we do not.

The Mona Lisa is a strange work of art in that her hair, sensually draped over her shoulders, would have been seen as implying loose morals.

The Mona Lisa is unlike any other picture of the time in that in the materialistic culture of early-16th-century Florence, portraits weren't an expression of individuality and character.