Is Mona Lisa Looking at You? German Researchers Say NO!

The world famous oil painting and Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece the Mona Lisa is looking at you, wherever you are in the room. This has been one of the most curious questions for ages among the art enthusiasts. Now the German researchers have come with an answer, which says she is not, challenging the scientific legend for years.

According to science, the “Mona Lisa Effect” refers to the impression that the eyes of a person in a picture seem to follow the viewer as they move in front of the picture. Now the researchers from the Bielefeld University have demonstrated and proved that this effect also does not occur with the famous Mona Lisa.

Researcher Sebastian Loth of Bielefeld University says, “Curiously enough, we don’t have to stand right in front of the image in order to have the impression of being looked at even if the person portrayed in the image looks straight ahead. This impression emerges if we stand to the left or right and at different distances from the image. The robust sensation of ‘being looked at’ is precisely the Mona Lisa effect”.

He also adds, “The effect itself is undeniable and demonstrable. But with the Mona Lisa, of all paintings, we didn’t get this impression”. The research has been published in the research journal i-Perception.

In order to study the researchers has asked a small group of participants to look at the Mona Lisa on a computer screen and assess the direction of her gaze. An ordinary folding ruler was positioned between the participants and the screen from several directions and distances and the participants have to indicate where the Mona Lisa’s gaze met the ruler.

The team also used 15 different sections of the portrait, from her entire head to only her eyes and nose, to test if Mona Lisa’s individual body features influenced the viewer’s perception of her gaze. During the research, the researchers have gathered more than 2,000 new assessments and from every single measurement, it is found that the Mona Lisa gaze is not straight and it is towards the right side of the viewers.

“Thus, it is clear that the term ‘Mona Lisa Effect’ is nothing but a misnomer. It illustrates the strong desire to be looked at and to be someone else’s centre of attention to be relevant to someone, even if you don’t know the person at all”, the researchers concluded in their research.