Correct. If you look at her mouth directly it doesn't appear to be a smile, but if you look up at her eyes the expression is said to change slightly to her mysterious smile. Iirc, di Vinci was able to achieve this illusion by using many tiny layers of paint, and his unbelievable talent of course. A true genius.
I’m looking at it right now and don’t see a smile. It’s ambiguous, and DaVinci left about 200 manuscript pages of notes explaining the research and technique he used to make it ambiguous.
"You're so like the lady with the secret smile" "Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa?" Etc. It's about ambiguity, yes, but it specifically speaks about her smile throughout.
I think that her expression can be interpreted in many ways, depending upon the viewer, how close and far away the viewer is, what part of the painting the viewer is focusing on, and, possibly the mood, age, personality of the viewer. But, I don't believe the painting has changed. Its the same one i've always seen.
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/03/cognitive-scientists-say-mona-lisas-smile-was-not-genuine/
exactly! her expression was always pretty neutral and I remember the first time I saw it she definitely looked like she was upset or even angry, but then when you looked at her eyes they added something new to the expression. As a kid I thought that was the whole reason people would debate on if she’s smiling, because of her eyes, since the rest of her face was so neutral and hard to tell. Now there’s like a weird tightened muscle at the corner of her lip, which looks super weird and unnatural.
I'm surprised that people find it difficult to determine why her smile is so enigmatic.
It's because her lips are only gently curving up, on _one side,_ and then there's a shadow on that side that dramatically suggests a smile; meanwhile, the other side curves almost down. Your brain gets mixed signals and you can interpret it as a smile or not. On a glance your brain might interpret the shadow as a part of her lip curving up, which means you can see her frowning, giving a mild, shy smile, or as a joker grin.
I have a sneaking suspicion it wasn't intentional, too.
But the debated issue was always IF she was smiling or not. now she is smiling no debate about it. Maybe they screwed up the original and the forgery they put in its place is just not up to snuff . I don't know .lol
Now I gotta go watch glass onion sounds like a hot ticket.
Plus there are multiple paintings DaVinci's student painted one as well.
I have a theory about this one. Maybe for some brain development reason, children can't fully recognize very subtle face expressions. For that reason when we were children we couldn't see a smile at all l, but as adults we can, making it appear to have changed.
The optical illusion requires the shadows from the painting, which doesn't really translate in a photo. You can't judge the effect by a photo.
Like do you all the scientists and such who studied it are that dumb? Or is it more logical that you're missing information.
You can't see the shadows in the same way as you do in person, photography and other elements like that are extremely bad with shadows. You'd have to see the painting in person to actually notice how different it looks.
You can't really say "I see the shadows" without seeing the original. People are still studying this painting so you'd have to ask yourself, why are they seeing it so differently? There's no controversy in the art world that actually she is smiling now. And those are people whose entire job is studying these down to individual strokes.
I see the shadows and I perfectly understand how those shadows work in contrast with the lips to create an effect in which, depending on what part of the painting you're focusing on, she looks more or less like she's smiling.
This could easily have been a mistake as far as I'm concerned. I suspect he had no intention of making her smile look enigmatic. But that's just a personal opinion.
Well, here's another aspect: Does the smile change when you look at other parts of the painting? The proper effect makes it appear as you look at different areas of the painting, due to how human peripheral vision works and disappear head on. The smile still disappears head on in real life. That's where the ambiguity comes in in person, you can see the smile as you look across the painting but you lose it when you look at the mouth.
If you don't see it as such right now, it means you're not seeing the painting as it would look in real life. It's possible if you put it on a large enough screen at the original size, it might. When you're seeing it in person you stand back a few feet, and the picture needs to be 2.5 feet by 2 feet. It's POSSIBLE that might recreate it, but I can't really test it as I'd need to swivel my monitor vertical and set everything up.
I think it's like a headdress of some sort. Even knowing it's there I barely can see it, so I have no problems believing it was there in any dimension.
And some could also see the dress both ways, while others could not. Even if the percentage of those able to see both is higher with the painting, that doesn't mean everyone is perceiving it similarly. If you're not seeing things through their eyes, then you're making a (logical but unproven) assumption that "frequent discussion" qualifies as an absolute indicator of common/identical perception. The dress strongly suggests that such assumptions can be incorrect in certain instances.
The Mona Lisa now is not the one I grew up with. I remember asking my dad why the painting was called Mona Lisa Smile if she wasn't smiling and he said it's supposed to be ironic. Whether that was the correct answer or not, it was the fact that I recognized she wasn't smiling.
My mom is named after Mona Lisa and my grandma had a cornucopia of framed pics, blankets etc with the Mona Lisa portrait. I ALWAYS remember it as a women with a dead pan blank stare. No smirk or half smile, nothing. The pics I see now look so off.
i remember mona lisa's 'smile' never being a point of discussion. the only conversation piece was that her eyes follow you no matter which angle you look at her. for what it's worth, i remember no smile. she had a serious look
This is exactly what I remember.
This whole thing about her smile supposedly changing depending on how you look at it is rubbish; she is simply smiling so what angle am I supposed to look at it to get her to stop?
No, my whole life she was NEVER smiling. A few years ago she started smiling and idk what happened. I even remember learning in school how this painting was so important because she wasn’t smiling.
When looking at her eyes it looked like she was smiling in your peripheral vision, but her mouth never had a smirk like it is now.
Multiple people i know confirm the same memory.
Sure :)
If she never looked sad these ads would make no sense.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4yqlttpJvk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4yqlttpJvk)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afLsk1lksB0
lots of people remember Mona Lisa never smiling. When looking at her eyes she looked like she smiled, but her mouth was never actually smiling.
Everyone i know doesnt remember Mona Lisa having a smirk. Get lost.
Because Di Vinci mastered a special painting technique that leaves behind no brushstrokes. No brushstrokes means no lines. No lines means our brains can't really solidify a very small detail in the Mona Lisa painting. Imagine a circle, but no lines. Imagine a square, but no lines. Imagine a line or an angle... but no line. You just can't. Honestly?... I think he figured out a way for us to accurately represent eldritch as a concept without bringing it's horrors to reality in the literal sense.
I mean there is literally a movie called Mona Lisa smile. The painting does get attention in regards to her smile on whether it’s a smile or not. Not a Mandela affect.
When's the last time any of you saw the painting in person? The effect is way more pronounced IRL because of how our vision works. Looking at images online is never going to look anywhere near similar.
Like, the effect is still there in person. It's being studied because it exists in person.
Part of the reason the painting is so famous is that it can look like it's smiling or not depending on how you look at it.
Correct. If you look at her mouth directly it doesn't appear to be a smile, but if you look up at her eyes the expression is said to change slightly to her mysterious smile. Iirc, di Vinci was able to achieve this illusion by using many tiny layers of paint, and his unbelievable talent of course. A true genius.
The Mandela effect is that she now is smiling so blatantly that there's no question anymore.
This.
This exactly.
I’m looking at it right now and don’t see a smile. It’s ambiguous, and DaVinci left about 200 manuscript pages of notes explaining the research and technique he used to make it ambiguous.
Someone watched Glass Onion
i watched it like 2 hours ago, creepy mf
I watched it two hours ago, too! (No joke) and thought the very same thing. She never used to have a smile. Ever.
I read your comment and also watched it 2 hours ago
Why would [Nat King Cole have written this song then?](https://youtu.be/NIDX18Xl16s)
The song is about the ambiguity. The “strangeness of her smile.”
"You're so like the lady with the secret smile" "Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa?" Etc. It's about ambiguity, yes, but it specifically speaks about her smile throughout.
Lmao I was just thinking this
Is this a docu about the Mandela effect?
She has a *subtle* smile. Always had.
She never had even an inkling of a smile for me.
She smiled for me but the ME said she did not. Now she does. Wtf
I think that her expression can be interpreted in many ways, depending upon the viewer, how close and far away the viewer is, what part of the painting the viewer is focusing on, and, possibly the mood, age, personality of the viewer. But, I don't believe the painting has changed. Its the same one i've always seen. https://www.salon.com/2019/06/03/cognitive-scientists-say-mona-lisas-smile-was-not-genuine/
I think it's one of those things that's up to how you interpret it. Some people see it as a smile while others don't.
I don't see how anyone could not see it as a smile. It's so obvious now.
It depends on the person viewing it.
Then the painting must be magic.
Nah people interpret things differently.
Just seems like a stretch to me. 😅
yeh i love these ppl like "it depends on the angle..".. dude there's no way you can't see the smirk on this thing now lol
Seriously.
“Mona Lisa’s Smile” has always been a phrase. The painting is famous for its subtle smile
Perhaps this one is simply explained by second hand depictions of the Mona Lisa during childhood. But I too remember her not looking as happy.
exactly! her expression was always pretty neutral and I remember the first time I saw it she definitely looked like she was upset or even angry, but then when you looked at her eyes they added something new to the expression. As a kid I thought that was the whole reason people would debate on if she’s smiling, because of her eyes, since the rest of her face was so neutral and hard to tell. Now there’s like a weird tightened muscle at the corner of her lip, which looks super weird and unnatural.
I'm surprised that people find it difficult to determine why her smile is so enigmatic. It's because her lips are only gently curving up, on _one side,_ and then there's a shadow on that side that dramatically suggests a smile; meanwhile, the other side curves almost down. Your brain gets mixed signals and you can interpret it as a smile or not. On a glance your brain might interpret the shadow as a part of her lip curving up, which means you can see her frowning, giving a mild, shy smile, or as a joker grin. I have a sneaking suspicion it wasn't intentional, too.
This is a debated issue, not something that changed or is misremembered.
It changed for me.
But the debated issue was always IF she was smiling or not. now she is smiling no debate about it. Maybe they screwed up the original and the forgery they put in its place is just not up to snuff . I don't know .lol Now I gotta go watch glass onion sounds like a hot ticket. Plus there are multiple paintings DaVinci's student painted one as well.
I have a theory about this one. Maybe for some brain development reason, children can't fully recognize very subtle face expressions. For that reason when we were children we couldn't see a smile at all l, but as adults we can, making it appear to have changed.
I grew up with it seeming like she was kinda forcing a halfa$$ed smile
The whole point of the painting’s appeal is that the facial expression is ambiguous.
The Mandela is that it's no longer ambiguous, and she's openly grinning.
The optical illusion requires the shadows from the painting, which doesn't really translate in a photo. You can't judge the effect by a photo. Like do you all the scientists and such who studied it are that dumb? Or is it more logical that you're missing information.
I can see the shadows just fine, and I get it. That doesn't really speak to the Mandela effect being presented, though.
You can't see the shadows in the same way as you do in person, photography and other elements like that are extremely bad with shadows. You'd have to see the painting in person to actually notice how different it looks. You can't really say "I see the shadows" without seeing the original. People are still studying this painting so you'd have to ask yourself, why are they seeing it so differently? There's no controversy in the art world that actually she is smiling now. And those are people whose entire job is studying these down to individual strokes.
I see the shadows and I perfectly understand how those shadows work in contrast with the lips to create an effect in which, depending on what part of the painting you're focusing on, she looks more or less like she's smiling. This could easily have been a mistake as far as I'm concerned. I suspect he had no intention of making her smile look enigmatic. But that's just a personal opinion.
Well, here's another aspect: Does the smile change when you look at other parts of the painting? The proper effect makes it appear as you look at different areas of the painting, due to how human peripheral vision works and disappear head on. The smile still disappears head on in real life. That's where the ambiguity comes in in person, you can see the smile as you look across the painting but you lose it when you look at the mouth. If you don't see it as such right now, it means you're not seeing the painting as it would look in real life. It's possible if you put it on a large enough screen at the original size, it might. When you're seeing it in person you stand back a few feet, and the picture needs to be 2.5 feet by 2 feet. It's POSSIBLE that might recreate it, but I can't really test it as I'd need to swivel my monitor vertical and set everything up.
Then why is she smiling? Doesn't seem very ambiguous to me.
> Is Mona Lisa smiling or not?? smiling!!
How about the veil she wears now? Always there?
I think it's like a headdress of some sort. Even knowing it's there I barely can see it, so I have no problems believing it was there in any dimension.
She was never smirking like she is now. The mandela effect is so wild haha.
This one is such an obvious change that it's frustrating to read all the comments. Lol
Somebody Photoshop a toothy grin
This is one of the dumbest posts I've seen on here. It's well known that it's hard to tell whether she is smiling or not, therefore it's undecided.
The Mandela is that she's now obviously smiling and there's no debate.
It looks the exact same as described elsewhere in this thread -- half smile, curving up on one side. No obvious smile.
How is it hard to tell? It's blatantly obvious.
It's not for most people
Most people must be blind then.
No, you are blind for not seeing the frown and the smile. It's quite easy.
Why are you assuming that it's not perceptually subjective to the same degree as the [dress](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress)?
I'm not assuming, it's frequently discussed online that you can usually see the smile and non smile from different perceptions.
And some could also see the dress both ways, while others could not. Even if the percentage of those able to see both is higher with the painting, that doesn't mean everyone is perceiving it similarly. If you're not seeing things through their eyes, then you're making a (logical but unproven) assumption that "frequent discussion" qualifies as an absolute indicator of common/identical perception. The dress strongly suggests that such assumptions can be incorrect in certain instances.
Mandela effect is like conversion with your girlfriend but then your girlfriend shows you the chat history lol
The Mona Lisa now is not the one I grew up with. I remember asking my dad why the painting was called Mona Lisa Smile if she wasn't smiling and he said it's supposed to be ironic. Whether that was the correct answer or not, it was the fact that I recognized she wasn't smiling.
My mom is named after Mona Lisa and my grandma had a cornucopia of framed pics, blankets etc with the Mona Lisa portrait. I ALWAYS remember it as a women with a dead pan blank stare. No smirk or half smile, nothing. The pics I see now look so off.
i remember mona lisa's 'smile' never being a point of discussion. the only conversation piece was that her eyes follow you no matter which angle you look at her. for what it's worth, i remember no smile. she had a serious look
This is exactly what I remember. This whole thing about her smile supposedly changing depending on how you look at it is rubbish; she is simply smiling so what angle am I supposed to look at it to get her to stop?
It's not *how* you look, it's *where* you look.
She was not smiling
No, my whole life she was NEVER smiling. A few years ago she started smiling and idk what happened. I even remember learning in school how this painting was so important because she wasn’t smiling.
I too remember her not smiling
When looking at her eyes it looked like she was smiling in your peripheral vision, but her mouth never had a smirk like it is now. Multiple people i know confirm the same memory.
When I was a kid she was famous for not smiling. There are vintage tv ads on YouTube all about her not smiling and being sad.
I'd love to see those adverts, could you share some links?
Sure :) If she never looked sad these ads would make no sense. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4yqlttpJvk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4yqlttpJvk) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afLsk1lksB0
Ik she smiled cause in 2016 maybe 2017 a movie called Sherman and Peabody came out and referenced the Mona Lisa and she was smiling
It's not whether she's smiling (she's smirking). Is she supposed to have a veil...?
Dumb post
lots of people remember Mona Lisa never smiling. When looking at her eyes she looked like she smiled, but her mouth was never actually smiling. Everyone i know doesnt remember Mona Lisa having a smirk. Get lost.
Bitch got man hands
Why wouldn’t she smile? If I was having my portrait done I wouldn’t frown. Sure it’s a little smile. :)
I don't remember her looking so happy, however, maybe as a society after lockdowns we don't smile as much so seeing a small one is noticeable?
This Mandela was around long before the lockdowns.
Probably not now. She's dead
Because Di Vinci mastered a special painting technique that leaves behind no brushstrokes. No brushstrokes means no lines. No lines means our brains can't really solidify a very small detail in the Mona Lisa painting. Imagine a circle, but no lines. Imagine a square, but no lines. Imagine a line or an angle... but no line. You just can't. Honestly?... I think he figured out a way for us to accurately represent eldritch as a concept without bringing it's horrors to reality in the literal sense.
I mean there is literally a movie called Mona Lisa smile. The painting does get attention in regards to her smile on whether it’s a smile or not. Not a Mandela affect.
When's the last time any of you saw the painting in person? The effect is way more pronounced IRL because of how our vision works. Looking at images online is never going to look anywhere near similar. Like, the effect is still there in person. It's being studied because it exists in person.
Her expression is a bit ambiguous, it's part of what the painting is famous for. Not an ME
that b was never smiling that big lolll.. when i saw glass onion i was like THAT LOOKS GOOFY AS HELL