The “Mona Lisa” and “A Starry Night”- What’s the Big Deal?

From the Mona Lisa to A Starry Night, paintings have played a huge role in our lives. We use painting to express ourselves or just to tell a story. Paintings all over the world show dignity, hard work, and passion. The Mona Lisa and A Starry Night got their great representation from the different brush strokes and color, realism, and hard work that it took to create the two masterpieces. One of the techniques that helped with these two artists achieve in their paintings  is called perspective. Without it, we wouldn’t have the amazing realistic art that we have today. In this article, we will go more in depth about two very special and famous paintings and the technique that shaped art forever.

One very famous painting is “A Starry Night”, which is painted by the one and only Vincent van Gogh. This piece is a magnificent piece of art that many people love the incredible sight of. Over 1.9 million people visit this painting at Vincent van Gogh’s art museum! People love this piece of art work because of its wavey sky, or just because it is an artistic painting! Vincent van Gogh painted this piece of art in 1889. As you notice, he used light brush strokes. He used this more on the sky than the buildings, just to make the sky resemblance its natural artistic beauty! If you look at a picture of A Starry Night, you will see beautiful curvy lines at the bottom. Are they waves? Are they hills? Well, they are actually trees. These trees help embrace the soft ability of the town. This brings nature to nature less towns and exposes beauty of this adoring painting people greatly admire!

From the detailed work, to the admiring realism, the Mona Lisa has been a favorite of all for centuries. So, why is the Mona Lisa so important? Well, for one it was created by the amazing Leonardo da Vinci. He was a spectacular inventor whose interest were drawing, science, mathematics, and so much more. One thing that also seems to captivate people is the way Leonardo made the Mona Lisa’s smile! Researches figured out that he actually used an illusion, the same technique that he has done before in another painting called La Bella Princessa. The effect was actually pretty simple, well, if your a master at painting of course. Through different shading techniques and blurs, the technique was created. The Mona Lisa is even  said to be the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, and has a the highest known insurance valuation at 650 million dollars! The Mona Lisa is a fantastic painting that uses perspective and realism in a very magnificent way. It shaped art as we know today, and who knows what the world would be like without that wonderful smiling Mona Lisa painting.

Before there were many painting techniques, paintings usually looked unrealistic and slightly dull. Many artists were amazed, however, when a new technique came along called perspective! Perspective is the idea that a two-dimensional painting can have a three-dimensional effect to it by using the right height, width, depth, and position in relation with each other when viewed from a certain point. An example of perspective would be to look at the road. Notice how the lines appear to look smaller as its farther away? Well, this is because of the way our eyes depict the three-dimensional life around us. This technique would also work when making things appear to be closer than other objects around them. One painting that uses this technique is called Le Pont De by Gustave Caillebotte. In the picture, you can see that the buildings appear smaller than the people, and the road gets thinner. It took nearly 400 years for artists to figure this technique out and still plays one of the biggest roles in painting and art in general today.

In conclusion, Paintings all over the world, using different styles and techniques, inspire us to paint just like others. The two most astounding paintings most people recall and adore are, “A Starry Night” and “The Mona Lisa”. These pieces have been made using hard work and life changing techniques. Using moonlight-like colors, Vincent van Gogh painted what he now calls, “A Starry Night”. Leonardo Da Vinci used realistic designs and an illusion with her smile to paint the perfect, “Mona Lisa”. You never know, even these artists who painted these wondrous paintings could have also been inspired by earlier paintings!


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famous paintings