The Turbulent Structure of Sfumato within Mona Lisa

Abstract

The author describes a particular way of looking at the Mona Lisa whereby evidence of a turbulent structure (based on underlying sfumato) that reveals an infinity of hidden faces behind the famous figure can be seen. When light is progressively reduced by a “squinting process,” the effect is especially striking in the last face on the edge of the painting's dark areas. The author interprets this visual phenomenon in the context of entropic skins geometry, which he has developed to describe the geometry and statistics of turbulent flows. Finally, the author argues that the form just under Mona Lisa's left shoulder can be interpreted as a human skull anamorphosis, as a kind of ironic signature by Leonardo.