The painting is a portrait of a woman in a relaxed three-quarter pose gazing out at viewer. A faint enigmatic smile graces her lips. Her face is an oval shape with no eyebrows or eyelashes. Her hair is long and dark.
Everything surrounding Mona Lisa's face is dark, bringing focus to the light of her face. The lady's skin is luminous. Her upper chest, neck and face glow in the same light that models her gracefully folded hands, which emerge from the shadows. The repetition of light draws the viewer's eye around the painting, but always back to the face and hands. Shadow at the edges of the painting blur detail and draw attention back to the face and that smile.
The background of the painting is a landscape. Mountains appear to recede into a vaporous distance disappearing into the sky. Differences between the subject and objects in the background provide an illusion of depth: the farther something is in the distance, the smaller the scale, the more muted the colors and the less detailed the outlines. The muted dark colors of the subject's dress and hair contrast with the lighter colors in the background.