THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (February 7, 2025): The portrait of Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, more exactly the portrait of one Lisa Gherardini, was executed by fits and starts very early in the 16th century. By now it has been seen by billions of people and is regarded as a painting like no other. Many visitors to the Louvre, where the “Mona Lisa” is displayed, must surely go only to see what all the fuss is about.
Some people feel that the sitter’s beauty is perfect, others that her looks are nothing special. There are those who say, thinking perhaps of Nat King Cole’s charming song, that her smile is enigmatic. But a smile without a known reason is scarcely an enigma, a puzzle to be solved. What is enigmatic is the extent of Mona Lisa’s stardom.
Whatever its source, the aura surrounding the “Mona Lisa”—in addition to bringing millions of admission-paying visitors to the Louvre each year—has contributed to the pop superstardom of the painting’s creator. Leonardo is everywhere. The proliferation of biographies and videos, the ill-researched journalism, the pseudo-historical claims, the blockbuster shows, the promotion of newly touted works that may just possibly be unknown Leonardo pieces—all this is the subject of Stephen Campbell’s “Leonardo da Vinci: An Untraceable Life.”