Ok… Call me a nerd or whatever you want… but I find this SO INTERESTING.
Leonardo da Vinci was known as a MASTER of details…. but one surprising mistake in this painting is leaving art experts confused.
Do you see something wrong?
What about now?
The ball shouldn’t be completely see-through like that… because it’s a sphere. Light should be distorted.
It could have been a simple mistake… but DaVinci is considered one of the great minds of his time… and people think it could have been a purposeful message of some sort.
Ooooooohhh That’s some old-school conspiracy theory fodder. #Illuminati
Apparently people are legit losing their minds over this.
According to this:
The last Leonardo da Vinci painting in private hands is expected to fetch a staggering £75million at auction – despite experts scratching their heads over one crucial ‘error’.
The Italian master painted Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World) around 1500, the same period in which he created his masterpiece the Mona Lisa, and was sold for just £45 60 years ago.
It depicts Christ in Renaissance clothing holding a glass orb, but art buffs have pointed out that the object appears completely see-through, when in reality the light passing through it should appear distorted.
Da Vinci’s biographer Walter Isaacson is among those questioning the whether the artist ‘chose not to paint it that way, either because he thought it would be a distraction […] or because he was subtly trying to impart a miraculous quality to Christ and his orb.’
According to the Guardian, Isaacson wrote: ‘Solid glass or crystal, whether shaped like an orb or a lens, produces magnified, inverted, and reversed images.
‘Instead, Leonardo painted the orb as if it were a hollow glass bubble that does not refract or distort the light passing through it.’
The painting had been long forgotten…. in fact:
The painting’s authorship had been forgotten, and part of the depiction of Christ had been overpainted.
Sotheby’s sold the painting, unaware of its true provenance, in 1958 for just £45.
An American businessman bought it 12 years ago at a small U.S. auction house for less £7,500, and began to research its history.
In 2011 the work was confirmed as a genuine Leonardo and unveiled publicly – making it the first discovery of a painting by Da Vinci since 1909.
Wow. Can you imagine? You should go check any artwork you have in your house. Right now.