This Article From Issue
January-February 2016
Volume 104, Number 1
Page 3
DOI: 10.1511/2016.118.3
To the Editors:
The article by Claus-Christian Carbon and Vera M. Hesslinger about the two extant Mona Lisas (“Restoring Depth to Leonardo’s Mona Lisa,” November–December) was fascinating, especially the three-dimensional possibilities for the two images.
Back in the day, many science magazines published small 3D images about protein structure and whatnot. These images were about 4 or 5 centimeters square, placed side by side. When one looked at them by defocusing the eyes to allow the two images to merge, a 3D picture emerged.
I took a smartphone image of the two Mona Lisas in the article and brought it to about the 5-centimeter magnification. When I defocused my eyes, I was astounded by the lifelike 3D image—Mona Lisa sharply in the foreground, and the landscape well behind her. I think this reveals that Leonardo had an intuition about optical effects centuries ahead of his time.
Emory Menefee
Richmond, CA
The Editors respond:
For readers who would like to try this trick, see the paired images above.
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