websites #2 Why is the Mona Lisa Smiling?

"Why is the Mona Lisa Smiling?"      http://library.thinkquest.org/13681/data/link1.htm
International ThinkQuest Collaborative

This is a unique website in that is is a student designed website for students created through the ThinkQuest Collaborative. Students from John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx, NY created this site in collaboration with a team of both school and Swedish advisors. The site is pretty good, I'd like to be a bit more interactive but overall, it works. It takes an unusual viewpoint of the Mona Lisa when it explores the work of computer graphics guru. Lillian Schwartz. Schwartz looks at the connection between the Mona Lisa's smile and the facial features of Leonardo da Vinci. In the art history world much has been made of Leonardo's resemblence to his works. This connetion was even touched on in the popular movie, "The Da Vinci Code."

I would use this site as more of an example of how students can actually create great websites themselves than as a fullblown "da Vinci painted himself" theory. I'd have students read it and then have them share their thoughts on the subject. Then I would direct them to http://www.kleio.org/en/history/monalisa/ml_fakten.html
Mona Lisa: Facts and Speculations, a great site by Art Experts contributor, Maike Vogt-Luerssen, a german art historian. This would be a great opportunity to compare where artists get their information and is their a bias to it.