A New and Improved Mona Lisa ... from China?
The Chinese are well-known for their copies of things, and their copies can be quite good. This time, however, we are not talking about copy but more like tongue-and-cheek. The thing is that, even though I am Italian, I prefer Yi Xing Ma's answer to the Mona Lisa over the Mona Lisa itself. Titled "Jun Jun's Smile", this tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Mona Lisa takes Jun Jun, Ma's muse, dresses her in a black dress, but sexy, faces her to the left, instead of to the right, like in the original Mona Lisa, with an enigmatic smile on her face, against a background, similar in style to that in the original. The effect is quite enjoyable, and it shows creativity, which is always part of Yi Xing Ma's paintings, one way or another.
I actually never saw what the fuss was over the original Mona Lisa, anyway. It's a technically nice painting, as are all of Da Vinci's paintings, but I've seen that sort of smile on too many other people, in my life, already, and Mona is not what I think of when i think of beautiful Italian women. You can see more paintings by Yi Xing Ma on the Yi Xing Ma page of the Leona Craig website


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