Mona Lisa

nationality

American

occupation / innovator as

surgeon

religion

Judaism

non-fiction writer

agnosticism

cause of death

natural causes

innovator in the field of

is, in fact, a scientific argument for the female role in procreation (which Da Vinci was ahead of his time in arguing) as she is pregnant in this portrait, with clear swollen hands and hands on the upper abdomen suggesting she is far advanced in pregnancy.

If Mona Lisa is not a portrait, then what is it? Perhaps more than any other painter, Leonardo's art is imbued with his scientific observations. While painting the Mona Lisa during the day, Leonardo would spend the nights at the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, dissecting corpses. His ambition was to discover the very source of life itself. Sherwin Nuland, a professor of surgery at Yale and an expert on Leonardo's anatomical studies, argues that the Mona Lisa symbolises the female role in procreation and that her expectant condition is evident in the painting. "She's supposed to be a relatively young woman in her early twenties. If you look at her hands, there's no question that she has swollen fingers," he says. "There's no question that she's holding her hands in the particular attitude that we're accustomed to seeing on the upper abdomens of women far advanced in pregnancy."

Sherwin NulandThinkers

Sherwin Nuland