Mona Lisa: da Vinci’s mom? A local merchant? A gay lover?

Hundreds of years have gone by and no one can quite agree upon who the heck Mona Lisa was, but we can probably all agree on one thing: she most likely wasn't a pregnant man as this picture by Yasumasa Morimura suggests. But hey, I say we give him an A for creativity and thinking outside the box.

This photo may be totally outlandish and a tad narcissistic, but you should expect nothing less from Yasumasa Morimura. Morimura has made a career out of questioning the associations that we have with the most iconic work from the art history books and does so by replacing the subject in the masterpieces with himself. Morimura also loves to challenge the male gaze, a.k.a that voyeuristic delight we get from staring at naked women lounging for us on canvases across gallery walls. So while we normally associate Mona Lisa with cool composure and ogle her regal beauty, Morimura is forcing us to see the nitty gritty griminess of her innards, which evokes thoughts of all the less than tantalizing bodily functions associated with womanhood.

You may be thinking, “This guy is a hack! He is just taking the work of other greater artists and trying to pass them off as his own!” While you are correct, in the art world that isn't viewed as a no no. See, the artsy elite have created a spiffy term for this - appropriation art - which basically gives anyone a pass to jack preexisting images and make them their own. The key is just to be REALLY good at stealing and then you can get away with it. The art world teaching us important life lessons yet again…

This work belongs to a series of three photos Morimura created of the Mona Lisa. Besides the fact that the Mona Lisa is the most infamous painting ever, making it an obvious choice for Muramura to recreate, there is another reason that the artist may have felt such an affinity towards the masterpiece. It is the theme of blurring gender identity.

Over 8 million people per year spend an exorbitant amount of time gazing upon her emotionally ambiguous face debating who the real Mona Lisa was. Well, after endless theorizing, some have decided that Mona Lisa is not a woman at all but rather is Leonardo da Vinci himself. Yes, some people actually think that the Mona Lisa is a selfie​ and are willing to go to some pretty extreme ends to prove it. Italian scientists produced a proposal to dig up da Vinci’s grave (which may not even hold his bones), run DNA tests, and then reconstruct his face based off his skeletal structure. By doing so a side-by-side comparison can be made and perhaps crack the mystery that has been driving millions crazy for over 500 years.

But why would Leo do such a thing? There are two very valid theories behind this one. First, da Vinci had a real thing for pranks, puzzles, and tricks. Second, it is widely believed that he was gay and may even have had a penchant for cross-dressing. The combination of these two quirky personality traits does seem to make for a pretty compelling argument that our beloved Mona Lisa could indeed be Leonardo himself.

Given Morimura’s infatuation with challenging preconceived notions and the fact that both da Vinci and him seem to have a thing for cross-dressing, it comes as no surprise that Morimura has such a kinship with the Mona Lisa. He sure does a good impression.