I've never quite understood why people seem to think the Mona Lisa has such a strange smile. To me the answer is obvious - she wasn't a very good sitter and kept changing her facial expressions. Which is why when you look at the Mona Lisa her smile only seems to appear when you don’t directly look at her mouth.
Creating a realistic image is most important if you are attempting a portrait. It has been made easier since photographs as you have one fix vision of a person. Da Vinci had to work from life, and as anyone knows who has tried painting a real person – they move. They start off happy, smiling and looking directly at you, and then they get bored and their head drifts and their expression changes. So you start off painting a happy person with happy eyes and by the time you get to their mouth you have a non smiling mouth. Which gives you the impression when you look at the eyes that she is smiling then you look at the mouth and the smile seems to have disappeared.
What do you think? Am I over simplifying it? Have I missed something?
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