揭祕：蒙娜麗莎有眉毛嗎?
The Mona Lisa originally had eyebrows, according to a French art expert who has analysed Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece with a special camera.
Pascal Cotte said da Vinci built the painting up in layers, the last being a special glaze whose optical properties increased the illusion of a three-dimensional face. Above the glaze Da Vinci painted details such as the eyebrows.
Cotte said: "That could explain why the eyebrows have disappeared – they have faded because of chemical reactions or they have been cleaned off."
He has uncovered a host of secrets about the Mona Lisa using a 240 megapixel camera. It can measure light so sensitively as to see through the top paint surface and uncover the layers below.
For example, infra-red imaging shows da Vinci moved the position of a finger on the left hand "to give a more relaxed position, consistent with the smile", Cotte said.
He said the Mona Lisa looked "totally different" 500 years ago, when it had a blue sky and the subject's skin had not yellowed.
The underlying layers of the face - painted using lead white and mercury vermillion - also show it was wider than the end result appears.
"The smile, the glance, the face were all wider," said Cotte.
But da Vinci did not change his mind half way through, he said. On top of the base layers the artist added a glazed shadowing layer to create a three dimensional effect.
"I do not say that he was successful, in reproducing a stereo-vision effect, but if you want to achieve that this is the best way to do it," said Cotte.
"But now it looks totally different to how he painted it. All the optical effects have disappeared."
He said that for da Vinci the Mona Lisa was "more than a painting, it was a challenge to reproduce real life".
法國一位藝術專家日前稱，蒙娜麗莎原本有眉毛。這位專家在使用一種專業相機對萊昂納多•達•芬奇的名作（《蒙娜麗莎的微笑》）進行分析後得出了該結論。
帕斯卡爾•柯特稱，達芬奇在繪製這張畫時使用了多層顏料，最表面的一層使用了一種特殊釉料，這種顏料的光學性能可增加人物面部的三維效果。在這層釉料上面，達芬奇繪製了眉毛等細節部位。
柯特說：“這可以解釋爲什麼眉毛不見了，可能是由於化學反應褪色了，或是被擦掉了。”
柯特使用一款240兆像素的相機揭開了有關蒙娜麗莎的很多謎團。這款相機可以精確地測量亮度，能夠透過表層“直視”下面的層次。
例如，從紅外圖像可以看出，達芬奇在作畫時改動了蒙娜麗莎左手一根手指的位置。柯特說：“這個位置給人的感覺更放鬆，與她的微笑很相稱。”
他稱，五百年前的蒙娜麗莎和現在“完全不同”，當時畫上背景的天空是藍色的，人物的膚色也沒有變黃。
此外，從使用鉛白和銀硃繪製的面部以下的層次可以看出，蒙娜麗莎的臉部原本比現在寬。
柯特說：“蒙娜麗莎的笑容、眼睛和臉部都比現在寬。”
他稱，但達芬奇沒有中途改變主意，之後，他在底層上添加了一層釉料陰影層來製造三維效果。“
柯特說：“我並不是說他在製造三維效果上做得很成功，但如果你想達到這種效果，這是最好的辦法。“
“但現在，這幅畫和最初達芬奇繪製它時已完全不同。所有的視覺效果都不見了。“
他表示，對於達芬奇來說，《蒙娜麗莎的微笑》“不僅是一幅畫作，還是重塑現實生活的一個挑戰。“
Vocabulary:
optical property: 光學性能，感官特性
infra-red：. the part of the invisible spectrum that is contiguous to the red end of the visible spectrum（紅外線）
stereo-vision：visual perception in three dimensions（立體視覺）
