Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” may be part of the oldest 3D picture known to history, according to two “visual scientists” who, In 2012, discovered a seemingly insignificant “copy” of the Mona Lisa in Madrid that was very close to the original, revealing the same subject with the same mountain landscape background that could have been painted by Da Vinci or possibly one of his students.
When they first perceived the two paintings side by side, it was obvious that there was a small but obvious difference in perspective, according to the researchers.
Apparently, the “real” Mona Lisa, (or “La Gioconda”) and it’s “copy” were painted from slightly different perspectives. “Apparently the painter of the Prado version looked at the Mona Lisa more to the left than the painter of the Louvre version” was the conclusion. The researchers then recalculated the position of both the painter(s) and to the “Mona Lisa as seen in Da Vinci’s studio.
The difference between the two paintings was about 2.7 inches, close to the average distance between a person’s two eyes.
When a person observes an object, each eye sees a slightly different perspective of the object, both of which are sent to the brain and transformed into the three-dimensional representation of the object that we “see. From these results, the researchers believe the two paintings form a ”stereoscopic pair”, meaning when viewed together create an impression of depth.
That is a 3D image of the “Mona Lisa”; soon to be opening at an IMAX theatre near you.