Compare and Contrast / In the Eye of the Beholder - Essay Example

I will posit that even as the wife of a banker, on a woman-to-woman level the female observer will recognize in the eyes of the subject that innocence which she, too, (I) once possessed. It is the innocence that the man senses in a woman, and is often why men are drawn to a woman’s eyes before they are drawn to her breasts or her shapely legs. It is the recognition of oneself that a woman sees in the portrait; whether or not that part of her own self still exists. Whether she has lost her innocence or not, that part of a woman remains recognizable to her, especially when she sees it in another woman.

That innocence, I would contend, is what the master Leonardo da Vinci did indeed capture in his portrait of Mona Lisa. It is for that quality and reason, as Fichner-Rathus states early on in her discussion when comparing da Vinci’s original work with subsequent interpretations by other artists, including Sadie Lee; that da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is one of the most famous faces in the world, probably having been pursued by more tourists than Jackie O.1 Why and how did she (Mona Lisa) attain this icon status?

Fichner-Rathus questions. In his book titled Reflection and Self-Reflection: Narcissistic or Aesthetic Criticism? Jeff Wallen (1992) writes, “Portraiture provides a context and a basis for Pater’s speculations on the thoughts and feelings of the artist, on the contents of his ‘inner life (p. 301).’” In his work in producing the Mona Lisa, on which the master for four years and still never completed, and using Wallen’s thoughts, one might conclude that in da Vinci connected with the child-like innocence that a woman begins her life with, which her eyes, so often referred to as the “window to the soul (Zebrowitz, 1997)” never seems to lose, or, if they do, it very quickly re-emerges under the prolonged gaze of a man.

If indeed portraiture served da Vinci as a context and a basis for expressing his own thoughts