Mona Lisa gets makeover for selfie era

Leonardo da Vinci's famed portrait of Mona Lisa has been recreated for the digital age as a selfie.

Digital artists may have solved the puzzle of the Mona Lisa's facial expression by recreating it as a "selfie".

The image was one of four classic 16th, 17th and 18th Century paintings re-imagined for the modern era in an art project led by digital artist Quentin Devine.

A team recreated masterpieces including self-portraits by Raphael (1504-1506) and Rembrandt (1665-1669) and the Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough (1770), as well as Leonardo da Vinci's fabled painting (1503-1506).

Stylists and make-up artists transformed lookalike models before they were photographed in poses as close as possible to the original portraits, before a digital artist added the finishing touches.

Each image took 36 hours to recreate.

The project was commissioned by TV channel Yesterday and UKTV Play to mark the start of their series Raiders Of The Lost Art on November 9.

Adrian Wills, general manager for Yesterday said: "The selfie is the most popular form of contemporary portraiture and so this is our present-day interpretation of these historic masterpieces.

"People have pondered for centuries on Mona Lisa's ambiguous facial expression - was she smiling or frowning? This recreation indicates it was indeed a smile, and she was perhaps more beautiful than the painting suggests."


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Source: AAP



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