Is there a woman or man in the painting?

"1596 Caravaggio, The Lute Player New York" (Wikipedia/The Lute Player (Caravaggio))

There are questions about the gender of the models that famous artists immortalize in the paintings. The image above this text is the "Lute player". The painter of that portrait was Caravaggio (1571-1610). Researchers noticed that there is a boy who plays the lute. 

There is the possibility that Cavanaggio used two or more models while he made that painting. In the same way, some people think that Mona Lisa is the self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. The fact is that Mona Lisa could be the sister of Leonardo da Vinci. 

But what was the reason for that? Why painters obscured the gender of the people who they immortalized in the paintings? In some cases, the purpose of this matter may be to protect the real identity of the model who the painter painted in the image. 

Mona-Lisa

Perhaps some of these models were important persons. People like spokesmen of noble or otherwise powerful families were busy. There was also the possibility that assassins were hunting for those people. And those important people did not have time to sit for many hours in front of the painter. 

So the painter used some other model for making the body. And finally, when the painting was almost ready. The artist immortalized the face of the person who that thing should portray. Maybe the things like playing lute hide the real identity of that model. 

And another reason for that could be that. The people who sat in front of the painter were somehow extraordinary. And that image was made for anthropologists so that they could track people who had similar abilities. 

In the time of da Vinci and Caravaggio, at least some, university people knew that some abilities, like productive thinking, were strong in some families. Leonardo da Vinci made many paintings. But he also made many weapons and things like tanks and aircraft invented by that mysterious man. 

A design for a flying machine (c. 1488), was first presented in the Codex on the Flight of Birds. (Wikipedia/Leonardo da Vinci)

An aerial screw (c. 1489) was suggestive of a helicopter from the Codex Atlanticus. (Wikipedia/Leonardo da Vinci)

So that meant the other painters should have similar abilities the anthropologists thought. When we are thinking about mathematical talents they are connected with musicality. All great mathematicians and physicists are musical people. And at this moment, I must say that things like musicality don't mean that person can sing or play any instrument.

The reason, why those images do not show the model man or woman sharply is that the fuzzy image gives freedom to make searches. That means if the person must search for something like gifted people the mind must not anchor to the gender of that person. 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lute_Player_(Caravaggio)