MONA TEASER

Hello again

Welcome to January's edition of The Autolycan.  Sorry it's a bit later than usual this month - what with all the excitement of Hull's first couple of weeks as UK City of Culture, I've only just got round to doing one.  Rather doubt it'll further enhance the City's burgeoning reputation as a centre of culture, but hope you enjoy it anyway!  Please pass on to others if you do.  Sorry, but you'll have to make up your own anagram this month as well!

MONA TEASER

Face–recognition software has determined that Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry.     FACTslides

It couldn't have been more than a couple of weeks or so before the reaction started to come in.

So-o-o-o-o happy 4 u! X

WOW!!!!! How cool is that? Great pic babe!!! xxx

Hey! U look just like oil painting LOL! Luv u loads!

Most of these messages were reinforced by the addition of several smiley faces.

Signora Lisa del Giocondo smiled. She felt happier than she'd ever been before. Yes, she'd been sceptical about that painter chappie her husband had hired, Leonardo someone or other, none of the other girls had ever heard of him, but scepticism had turned to curiosity, when he announced that he was no ordinary painter, but as he himself put it, 'a bit of a, like, y'know, inventor, know what I mean?'

'And what, pray, have you invented recently?' she had asked him.

'The selfie, Signora.'

'The selfie?'

'Yeah. The selfie. It's where I paint, like, this picture of you.'

'But if it's you who paints my picture why do you call it a selfie?'

'Ah, that's the good bit. See, I got this, like system where you say who can see it, I then take it round to them, they add comments, and if they like, emojis.'

'Emojis?'

Leonardo grinned, slyly.

'Yeah. They're like faces, smiley, sad, grumpy, whatever. I, like, well, I invented them an' all. Never mind all that buggering about trying to show the inner essence of the subject, never mind experimenting with hundreds of different eyebrows - they all look much the same, eyebrows, don't they, though of course we artists claim that they don't and that tiny differences completely change what a subject's supposed to be feeling. Well, couple of seconds' nifty brushwork, quick emoji, you can do away with all that, Roberto's your uncle.'

'I see. Then what happens?'

'Well, after they've all seen it, you get it back with their comments. Plus emojis - anyone can do them, that's the beauty. I've been trying to think of a name for the whole thing. It's like, you and your mates can all send each other pictures of your faces, so that each of you creates like a book. Any ideas?'

'A book of faces? How about Viso Libro?'

'Viso Libro! Of course! It'll revolutionise the way people communicate with each other.'

'For the better, I trust?'

'Well, yeah, for the better, of course. Specially when I've perfected the hashtag.'

'The what?'

'The hashtag. The idea is it should allow you to link in to all messages what quote that hashtag. Except …...'

'Except what?'

'It's not quite right yet. I just keep getting loads of messages about someone called Kim Kardashian.'

'Who's she?'

'Search me.'

'Never mind hashtags, if you're an inventor as well as an artist, shouldn't you be concentrating on important fields – you know, architecture, anatomy, physics, military engineering.......'

Leonardo shrugged, awkwardly.

'S'pose that's what comes of being a bloody whatsit, polymath, innit?'

'Polymath?'

'Yeah. Nothing's too small for your attention when you're a polymath. It can be a bit of a bugger sometimes.'

'How do you mean?'

''Well, here I am doing your picture, then yesterday the Duke of bloody Milan pops up, all la-de-da like, and says how about a design for a new siege engine, no rush, Thursday will be fine, then that young swine Pacioli decides he wants an unusual, possibly unique solid form for that bloody book of his - come on da Vinci, how about a rhombicuboctahedron? - knowing full well that there's probably no such bloody thing so I've got to invent it, plus I've been meaning to start dissecting that horse's leg out the back for ages, shouldn't wonder if it hops out by itself soon....'

Lisa had been delighted with the painting when she first saw it. The hands, the dress, most of all the brilliant, radiant smile had enchanted her. This Leonardo was a genius – she was 100% happy.

So she was appalled when she walked into his studio one day soon after, and found him busy painting out parts of her beloved portrait.

'What are you doing?' she had enquired, her voice dripping with disgust.

'Great art is transient' he had mumbled. 'A transition from this colour to this larger colour. It swells and contracts, becomes stationary, then explodes.'

'What on earth does that mean?'

'I dunno. Half the time my head's spinning with that bloody stuff. It's something about art being temporary and disappearing. Things moving on. Interesting thought, that. I've been playing around with it a bit. What if you could send people pictures what disappeared automatically after a few minutes. Seconds, even.' What do you reckon to calling it Instantanea Chat?

'And what possible use would that be?'

'There must be loads of people what would send cheeky pictures of their own genitals to paramours, inamorata and such like. They'd be much more confident about it if they knew the pictures would disappear straight away. Could be a nice little earner, that. Bloody sight easier than trying to build a helicopter or an automated bloody bobbin winder'

'A what?'

'Never mind. Anyway, getting back to your portrait, the second version is going to be loads better. Defo. Just you wait.'

Lisa giggled. Already the feeling of disgust was starting to disappear. She could see nothing wrong with the first version, but if he said the next one would be even better...... well!

Her happiness soared, although a small part of her remained just a little disgusted with the reference to genitals. Surely people wouldn't do a thing like that. Would they?

Leonardo was a quick worker. A couple of days later she looked in to his studio to see how things were going to find him in a frenzy of activity.

'Sit! Sit!!' he commanded. 'I've got this great idea. I'm calling it sfumato.'

'What does that mean?'

'No idea. It's probably something to do with shading one part of the picture into another. But it means I can do you a really great smile!'

'I liked the smile as it was.'

'Naah. What happens now is that when someone looks directly at it, the slant of the mouth goes down. But when they look at another bit, the slant goes up. Look, this is going to wow the art world for years, centuries even!'

Lisa was uneasy. She sat silently in her chair while Leonardo worked feverishly. Eventually he looked up, to find that she was trying to smile with her mouth turned both up and down simultaneously.

'I don't think I can do this' she muttered fearfully. 'It goes all lop-sided. I was happy before, but........well, I'm going to be a laughing stock. I'm afraid, Leonardo.'

'Don't worry!' he shouted. 'I'll take care of all that! You'll be enigmatic! Mysterious! I'll emphasise all that by making the background look a bit odd. Eyebrows as well, come to think of it.'

'Eyebrows?'

'Yeah. I'll do 'em so that hundreds of years from now we get people arguing over whether you've plucked them, whether some low grade restorer has wiped 'em out, or whether the great Leonardo da Vinci simply forgot to put 'em in. It'll all add to the enigma. Look, years from now when people Google “enigmatic smile” the top few references will all be about you. How cool is that?'

'Google?'

Momentarily the great man fell silent. 'Yeah, well, that's something else I'm doing that doesn't work very well yet. Unless of course you Google Kim Kardashian. That comes up with loads. My guess is that sooner or later if you do that you'll get something close to 70 million results. God knows why, but there it is. You never know where it's going to take you, inventing stuff.'

'But I don't want to be enigmatic. I want to be beautiful, like in the first picture.'

'Beautiful women in pictures are two a lira! You need something more. Look, I've put in just a hint that you've got too much cholesterol.'

'Cholesterol?! I haven't got a high level of cholesterol! Whatever it is. Have I?'

'Course you haven't. Well I suppose you could have, since nobody knows what it is yet. See how it all adds to the mystery.'

'Leave the cholesterol out.'

'No. But I'll tell you the real winner. What'll really get 'em arguing for bloody ages to come.'

'Oh God. What's that?'

It was Leonardo's turn for the cryptic smile.

'Erm......er......you're going to love this.......do you remember that self portrait what I done?'

'Which one?'

'The one of me, of course.....'

'Ye-e-e-es.....'

'Well, when I come to look closely, I realised that there's a lot of similarity between your head and mine.'

'What?'

'In terms of distance between the eyes. Distance from nose to lips, that sort of thing. What us anatomists call the cranial architecture.'

Lisa didn't like the way this was going.

'I don't see what.......'

'Listen, I'm altering it just enough so that some clever bugger in the future spots the similarities between you and me and claims that this is really a self portrait.'

This time her anger flared.

'Well, of all the.....'

'Don't worry, it'll be subtle, like. I won't give you the long flowing beard or nothing. But just close enough to get people talking. It'll make you famous. More important, it'll keep you famous. Probably for ever.'

She couldn't be angry with him for long – and then the comments started to come back from her friends.

Thort you was gorgeus before, but baby look at u now!! WOW!! #LovelyLisa

Thos eyes!!!! Just beautful!!!!! URAQT!! Luv and hugs! #WillUMarryMe

New smile amazing!! How u do that hun? Epic!! Xxx

Suddenly, Leonardo spoke softly from behind her.

'How are you feeling now, Lisa? Not disgusted, fearful or angry any more? Mostly happy?'

She turned to face him. For a moment she held his gaze impassively before her face broke into the most enigmatic smile he'd ever seen.