Word: lisa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...name conjures up a heavy-browed, sad, hawk-eyed man, with a straight nose, mouth firm to the point of cruelty, and a flowing silver beard. In contrast to that awesome image of masculine rigor, it also recalls the dark, soft femininity of his most famed creation-the Mono. Lisa. This painting, which hangs in the Louvre, is probably as well known as any in existence-though few admirers pretend to grasp it fully. A portrait of the wife of a Florentine merchant named Francesco del Giocondo, it has been the subject of a towering stack of critical works. Summarizing...
Subtlety & Superiority. One critic who saw nothing strange about the Mono, Lisa was the 16th century's Giorgio Vasari, who praised the painting for its naturalism. "In this head," Vasari wrote, "every peculiarity that could be depicted by the utmost subtlety of the pencil has been faithfully reproduced . . . Mona Lisa was exceedingly beautiful, and while Leonardo was painting her portrait, he took the precaution of keeping someone constantly near her, to ... amuse her, to the end that she might continue cheerful...
...science-minded 20th century, Sigmund Freud applied psychoanalytical guesswork to the problem. He decided that the Mona Lisa was actually an idealization of Leonardo's own mother...
Through the growing darkness of the little panel wherein she holds court, Mona Lisa keeps smiling silently on mankind. In illuminating one by one her amber facets, the critics have only succeeded in making her more dazzlingly mysterious...
United Jewish Appeal (Sun. 7 p.m., ABC). Jose Ferrer in A Child Named Lisa...