Da Vinci

5th Grade Lesson Plan

(Taken mainly from the Mona Lisa is Stolen Web Site)

Had teacher hide the picture, come in dressed like a private eye, with magnifying glass, trench coat looking for missing painting--Pretend you are a detective, look all over the room while muttering to get the children's attention...

Where is the picture, who took it?  This reminds me of the time it was stolen in 1911...the most famous picture in the world was stolen right off the wall in the Louvre, no one even noticed for a day.

Tell about painter Beroud and what happened.  "I was one of 60 investigators sent over, we had closed the museum and let out the visitors.  The Louvre was closed for a week.  One even left a bouquet of flowers.  We didn't have much to go on, we found the glass and the frame lying in a staircase.  We thought several things, maybe it was a discontented employee, maybe stolen by someone wanting to make money by blackmailing the government, maybe a museum worker showing how badly the Louvre protects these treasures. 

Who would steal La Gioconda (that is what we call the painting here in Europe)  - painted by Leonardo Da Vinci - his most famous picture is said to be the wife a famous Italian merchant, Leonardo spent 4 years on it and was even taken to his last home in France, that is why it is now in a Paris museum even though it was painted in Italy.  It is said that Leonardo employed musicians and jesters to prevent the model from losing her smile and becoming melancholy.

Leonardo was born in Italy, in a small town of Vinci (Leonardo da Vinci) - His father was a lawyer and his mother a peasant girl.  He lived during a time in Europe when everyone was interested in art.  This period of time was called the Renaissance.  He was a famous but he was a genius and did other things to, an architect, a musician, a sculptor, scientist, inventor and mathematician.  He designed plans for buildings, bridges even whole cities.  He also made notes with his drawings, but he wrote them all backwards you had to read them in a mirror.  His portraits were so beautiful and he learned what he learned of nature to make them that way.  Ginerra da'Benci - is so smooth you can hardly see a brush mark.  He was one of the first to paint the mother of Jesus smiling and playing with her baby. (Both of these in Mannering Book)

He moved to Milan and painted The Virgin of the Rocks (Mannering Book) - this was important because most artists would outline their people and use flat backgrounds, he painted his figures without outlining them, he would blend the shadowy part into the background.  The light parts would jump towards you , light and dark what is this called? 
The Last Supper:  Madonna and child are wrinkly because Leonardo probably had too much oil in the paint.  The Mona Lisa is one of the last pictures he made, he spent the last years of his life in a castle given to him by the King of France and worked on his other interests.

He loved to cut up dead animals and learn about the bones and skeletons, his drawings were so good that they were used in medical books.  (Overhead, show how writing is backwards also)

Astronomer: First to realize the sun is stationary

Inventor: Weapons and war machines

      Flying machines.                                           

Two years after the Mona Lisa was stolen, a well-know antique dealer placed an ad in several Italian newspapers saying - "he was a buyer at good prices of art objects of every sort.  Soon after the ad he received a letter stating the writer was in possession of the stolen Mona Lisa, with a post office box in Paris as the return address, it was signed Leonardo.  He thought he was dealing with someone having a copy of the Mona Lisa so he contacted the director of a museum in Italy.  They wrote a letter saying that needed to see the painting.  Another letter came to Geri saying he could not go to Paris, but he arranged to meet Leonardo in Milan. On December 10, an Italian man with a mustache appeared at Geri's office in Florence,. After all the customers left he told Geri that he was Leonardo and he wanted a half million ire for the painting.  He stole it to restore to Italy what Napoleon had stolen.  He would only sell if Geri agreed to hang it in a Italian museum and never return it to France.  Geri agreed to the price but said that the director of the museum would have to see it first.  The following day Geri and Pogge (the museum director appeared in Leonardo's hotel room.  Leonardo pulled out a wooden trunk after removing clothes, he removed a false bottom and there lay the Mona Lisa.  This was obviously the real Mona Lisa.  The director said he must compare with other works by Leonardo da Vinci and they walked out with the painting.  The story was simple, Vincenzo Peruggia, born in Italy had worked at the Louvre, still knew many guards he waked into the museum, noticed no one in the salon where it was kept and he walked out with the Mona Lisa under his painters smock.  He didn't want to dispose of the painting, only to return it to Italy.  The public went wild with the news and it was displayed in Italy before returning it to France in 1913.

Aah, here it is,

Why do you think she is smiling?  Look at the background, tell how the columns were cut off.

Dress is Florentine fashion, show how eyes follow you. 

Is she sad or happy?

Tell about how she is used in ads (samples in file), songs (play CD) - Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa