Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper
—Christina
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If one man embodies the European Renaissance, it is Leonardo da Vinci. He is best known for his artwork but, like so many of his contemporaries, he was also a natural philosopher (aka a scientist), an inventor, and a writer. He is said to have disliked painting, but did it to pay the bills for his other interests. One of his most famous works is The Last Supper, a wall painting depicting the Passover meal shared by Jesus of Nazareth and the Apostles shortly before his arrest and crucifixion.
The work was commissioned in 1495 by Ludovico Sforza, originally as a decoration for the family mausoleum. The building was, instead made part of a monastery, in which the painting fills one wall of the refectory (or dining hall). It measures 15 feet, one inch by 28 feet, ten inches (460 cm by 850 cm). It is painted directly onto a stone wall that was sealed and coated with a layer of white lead paint. It is not, like so many such paintings of the era, a fresco, a long-lasting method in which the paint applied to wet plaster. The colors are primarily tempera, pigments mixed with egg yolk as a binding agent to create a vivid color that dried quickly but could also be worked over if and when da Vinci wanted to make changes. Such paints were commonly used on wood panels, they were not suited to walls. Da Vinci worked on the painting over three years, sometimes with long periods between work. His journals include many studies and sketches of faces, he wanted to depict each man in just the right way, based on people he saw in Milan. It was particularly difficult for him to find an appropriate example for Judas, and spent many days walking the streets of the city looking for a face that appeared sufficiently evil. When the prior of the monastery complained about the inconsistent work, da Vinci offered to speed up the process by using the prior’s face as a model for Judas.
The image captures the moment immediately after Jesus has announced that he is aware of imminent betrayal from one amongst the group. All of the men appear shocked by the revelation, and some seem to foreshadow later events in which they’ll take part. Judas is withdrawn, with a small moneybag in one hand, perhaps the down payment on his coming actions. Peter holds a knife, mirroring the sword he will later wield in the Garden of Gethsemane. Thomas raises his index finger, as if to ask a question, foreshadowing his doubt over the Resurrection.
The painting was finished on 9 February 1498. Due to the materials used, it began to quickly decay. Thankfully, at least two oil copies were made on canvas shortly after its completion, which allowed for later restorations and a clearer view of da Vinci’s original work. These were important to restorations attempted in the 1720s and 1770s, though these were not completed. The refectory was used as a stable by French soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars, and was flooded in the first decade of the nineteenth century. In 1821, an attempt was made to remove the whole painting by Stefano Barezzi, an expert in restoring and moving frescos; the center portion was damaged before the he realized it was not a fresco. A careful study was done in the first decade of the twentieth century and plans made for cleaning and restoration. This was continued intermittently through the 1920s. The building was heavily damaged by Allied bombing during the Second World War, but a protective barrier had been built to encase the wall, meaning the damage was minimal. Attempts at restoration over the next three decades sometimes did more harm than good. The efforts were taken over by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon in 1978. Her first task was to stabilize the painting itself, and its environment. Since it could not be removed, a sealed and climate-controlled space was built around it. This began the long process of cleaning, removing earlier attempts at restoration, and returning it to as close to the original as possible. Some areas had to be replaced entirely, repainted with slightly different colors to indicate the more modern work. When it was finally revealed in 1999, many people criticized Barcilon’s work, claiming that she had destroyed the original, but such condemnation has reduced in the time since.
In the last few decades, the painting has gained considerable attention due to unfounded interpretations about the messages da Vinci intended to convey in the painting. These primarily center around the idea that the artist hid clues about Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdeline, even to the point of including her in place of one of the Apostles, John. The main piece of supposed evidence for this is that John appears feminine; this ignores da Vinci’s known tendency to blur gender lines in his work. There is no explanation within these theories as to why Mary Magdeline could not be included as herself, nor for why John would have had to be removed. In the end, there is little basis for the idea, but it has taken hold in popular culture primarily due to the work of the novelist Dan Brown, whose book The Da Vinci Code became a bestseller shortly after its 2003 publication and was made into a movie in 2006.
Today, the painting is available for viewing through the Museo del Cenacolo Vinciano in Milan.