囧研究:蒙娜麗莎因懷孕微笑?大綱

500年前達芬奇·里奧納多畫了這幅當今西方藝術上最富盛名的畫作，目前真跡被放在巴黎盧浮宮博物館，也成爲了盧浮宮博物館的三大鎮館之寶之一，而蒙娜· 麗莎那神祕的微笑更是幾百年來許多專家學者的研究對象。最新研究顯示這幅畫作中的模特可能是一位懷孕女性——而這也恰恰是達芬奇創作這幅畫作的原因。

Five hundred years after Leonardo painted the Most famous picture in Western art, new research suggests that his model may have been an expectant mother - and that he painted her for precisely that reason.

500年前達芬奇·里奧納多畫了這幅當今西方藝術上最富盛名的畫作，最新研究顯示這幅畫作中的模特可能是位懷孕女性——而這也恰恰是達芬奇創作這幅畫作的原因。

Mona Lisa is a puzzle and quite unlike any other picture of the time. In the materialistic culture of early-16th-century Florence, portraits weren't an expression of individuality and character, they were an advert for wealth and social status. But far from being the height of fashion, Mona Lisa's dress is utterly plain and timeless and, despite the fact that she is a married woman, she wears no jewellery, not even a wedding ring.

《蒙娜麗莎》這一幅作品和當時的其他作品不太一樣。在16世紀早期的佛羅倫薩，一切都處在唯物主義的指導下，肖像畫作不是用來展示個畫中人物的性格而是一種財富和社會地位的象徵。這幅畫作裏的蒙娜麗莎卻沒有顯現出當時的潮流，她穿着的服裝樸實無華，完全看不出來她是個已婚的女性，既沒有佩戴珠寶也沒有戴戒指。

The mystery deepens when we learn that Leonardo never delivered the portrait. Instead, he continued to work on it for many years and kept the Mona Lisa by his side until his death on May 2, 1519.

當我們瞭解到達芬奇·里奧納多不僅沒有把這幅畫賣出，還在之後的很多年裏繼續創作這幅畫，並最終將這幅畫珍藏到死。這一切更加加深了這幅畫的神祕感。

Rona Goffen, professor of art history at Ruttgers University, argues that although Mona Lisa began as a portrait, at some point its purpose changed: "It was intensely personal to Leonardo, something that he would develop over the years entirely for himself."

羅格斯大學藝術史教授Rona Goffen認爲《蒙娜麗莎》起初是一幅肖像畫，但是在某種意義上卻有了不同的目的：“里奧納多傾注了強烈的個人情感，讓他在之後幾年裏都在繼續創作這幅畫作。”

If Mona Lisa is not a portrait, then what is it? Perhaps more than any other painter, Leonardo's art is imbued with his scientific observations. His ambition was to discover the very source of life itself.

如果《蒙娜麗莎》不是一幅肖像畫，那又會是什麼呢？與其他畫家不一樣，里奧納多的藝術中充滿了他對科學的觀察。他急切的想探索生命的奧祕。

Professor Martin Kemp, widely regarded as the world's leading authority on Leonardo, describes: "If you think that Leonardo, in a sense, saw this inside her body, then you suddenly realise, wow, that is how Leonardo looked at it. He thinks he's really getting to the mystery of life, the cyclical nature of birth, maturity and death."

被認爲是里奧納多研究領軍人物的Martin Kemp教授說：“如果你認爲里奧納多在某種程度上看出了她已經懷孕了，你就會猛然發現里奧納多的視角原來是這樣的。他認爲自己對神奇的生命瞭解越來越多，瞭解了人類從出生到成熟最終死亡的生命週期循環。”

The life cycle and the female role in creation is still only half the story of the Mona Lisa. The other half, often overlooked, is the primeval landscape in front of which she is sitting. Most people assume that this was a product of Leonardo's fertile imagination, but there's increasing evidence it was inspired by the landscape of his childhood, the Arno Valley.

生命的循環和女性角色還只是《蒙娜麗莎》這個故事的一半。常常被忽視的另外一半則是畫中蒙娜麗莎背後的背景。大多數人覺得那是里奧納多想象出來的，但是越來越多的證據表示蒙娜麗莎背後的背景其實是達芬奇根據自己兒時的記憶創作出來的自己曾經生活過的地方——亞諾河河谷。

The two great lakes continuous, hydrological cycle all match Leonardo's observations about how the landscape we see today was shaped by the power of water. Many regard him as the father of geology as a modern science.

兩條大河持續不斷的沖刷循環造就了我們今天所看到的風景。很多人將他視爲現代科學中的地理學之父。

It is a distillation of all that he had discovered through a lifetime's observation into the secrets of nature.

因此《蒙娜麗莎》也是達芬奇對生命和自然觀察留下的精華所在。