Arts are always full of mysteries. And also you can always interpret them. The historic arts are puzzles full of hidden meanings. You can watch again and again your favorite art painting but still, you’ll manage to find some new detail or a hidden symbol in it. Most of the famous artists have put secret messages in their artworks intentionally. They have done this for several reasons. Challenge their audience, reveal something about their personality, and remain the authority for the artworks are some of those reasons. After hundreds of years of creating, many of those secret messages are being discovered with the support of modern technologies. You may have a curiosity to know about some of those paintings and reveals their hidden meanings. So in this article, I’ll bring you such secrets behind some world-famous paintings!

#The Last Supper

This is a painting did by Leonardo Da Vinci in the late 15th century. If you have read the book “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown you may know that there are lots of discussions regarding this painting. For hundreds of years, everyone identified the person at the right of Jesus as John the Apostle. But Dan Brown proposes that there is Mary Magdalene who has been disguised as John. He also pointed out that there is a “V” shape formation between Jesus and Mary. He represented it as a female womb and he also said that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child by then. It means when Jesus was murdered, Mary Magdalene was pregnant.

 

But many art historians say that John had a female appearance because he was represented always like that. But the most important secret behind that art was discovered by Giovanni Maria Pala, an Italian computer technician. He identified that Da Vinci had hidden musical notes inside this art when reading it from left to right side. He decrypted it as a hymn that longs for 40 seconds.

#Café Terrace at Night

Did you know there is another famous version of “The Last Supper” painting? This Café Terrace at Night is an artwork done by Vincent van Gogh in 1888. When looking at this it’s simply an oil painting of a street café in the colorful French city. But in 2015, Jared Baxter, an expert about Van Gogh’s paintings, suggested that this painting is actually a version of “The Last Supper”. 

de.m.wikipedia.org

When closely studying the figures in the painting, there is a person in the middle with long hair surrounded by 12 individuals. Jared said that person in the middle is Jesus. And in this painting, there is a person who looks hiding in the shadows. Jared referred to him as Judas.

#The Creation of Adam

This is one of the most famous artworks done by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He was an expert artist who had good knowledge about human anatomy. Neuroanatomy experts like Rafael Tamargo and Ian Suk said that Michelangelo had carefully painted human body parts on the ceiling. If you carefully look at the god and his surroundings in “The Creation of Adam” painting, you’ll find that the surrounding has an illustration of the human brain. Suk and Tamargo suggested that the illustration of the brain represents that God gives Adam’s life along with human knowledge. 

Mona Lisa

This is another masterpiece done by Leonardo Da Vinci in the 15th century. Many people know about the explanations about the Mona Lisa’s secret half-smile. But there are many secrets in this painting other than that. Some historians said that she is pregnant. In this painting, her arms were kept over the belly and there is a veil around her shoulders. As historians say it was usually worn by pregnant women during the Italian Renaissance.

The newest secret in this artwork is about her eyes. In 2011, Silvano Vinceti, an Italian researcher found microscopic letters and numbers painted on those eyes. He found the “L” letter on her right eye and he defined it as it represents the artist’s name. the “S” letter he found on her left eye referred to a woman called ‘Sforza Dynasty’. She was a ruler in Milan and he further said that the woman in the painting is her, not Lisa Gherardini. He found the number “72” under the arched bridge of the painting. Vinceti suggested that it should be a number significance to both Judaism and Christianity. For example number “7” may represent the creation of this world and the number “2” may represent the duality of men and women.   

I'm Dilshan an undergraduate in Lincoln University College Malaysia. As a hobby I observe various categories I like and summarize what I have learnt. Here comes my articles as a freelancer! Hope you'll grab some knowledge reading my articles!!

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