researchers reveal that mona lisa may be history's first 3-D image

researchers reveal that mona lisa may be history’s first 3-D image
all images courtesy of claus-christian carbon and vera m. hesslinger

researchers claus-christian carbon and vera m. hesslinger (experimental psychologists based in germany) have reported that leonardo da vinci may have unknowingly created the very first 3-D image in history with his famed ‘mona lisa’ masterpiece. evidence has been drawn from the in-depth analysis and side-by-side comparison between da vinci’s own ‘mona lisa’ housed in paris’ louvre and an additional version held at the museo del prado in spain — often thought by historians to be made by a copyist.

(from left to right)
a detailed view of the face regions of the prado and the louvre versions and a red–cyan anaglyph combining both depictions

however, based on their documentation, the two researchers have hypothesized that the prado rendition was actually painted by an apprentice in da vinci’s workspace at exactly the same time as the original, from a slightly different positioning in the room. the space between the two perspectives would have created a stereoscopic 3-D effect when overlaid on top of each other. ‘we reconstructed the original studio setting and found evidence that the disparity between both paintings mimics human binocular disparity.’ they describe in their report ‘this points to the possibility that the two giocondas together might represent the first stereoscopic image in world history.’

the famous mona lisa exhibited in (right) the louvre, paris and her sister painting in (left) the prado, madrid

further study indicates that the paintings’ mountainous background was actually a flat canvas, hung behind ‘la gioconda’, just like a backdrop in a modern portrait studio. the overwhelming similarities between the two works — and again their relationship to perspective — assert that they were made side-by-side at the same time. ‘by analyzing divergences between the mona lisa and her prado double that was painted in parallel but from another perspective we found mathematical evidence for the motif- canvas hypothesis: the landscape in the prado version is 10% increased but otherwise nearly identical with the louvre one, which indicates both painters used the same plane motif-canvas as reference.’

(from left to right)
a detailed view of the hand regions of the prado and the louvre versions and a red–cyan anaglyph combining both depictions

 the supposed setting during the painting of the mona lisa as recreated in playmobil
 (ML stands for mona lisa, the portrayed person; 1st = painter of the louvre version; 2nd = painter of the prado version)

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