The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci)The Last Supper (Italian: Il Cenacolo. It is one of the world's most famous paintings. The painting represents the scene of The Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples, as it is told in the Gospel of John, 1. Leonardo has depicted the consternation that occurred among the Twelve Disciples when Jesus announced that one of them would betray him. Due to the methods used, a variety of environmental factors, and intentional damage, very little of the original painting remains today despite numerous restoration attempts, the last being completed in 1.
Painting. 1. 52. 0, by Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli, called Giampietrino (active 1. Leonardo da Vinci, oil on canvas, currently in the collection of The Royal Academy of Arts, London; full- scale copy that was the main source for the twenty- year restoration of the original (1. It includes several lost details such as Christ's feet and the salt cellar spilled by Judas. Giampietrino is thought to have worked closely with Leonardo when he was in Milan. The Last Supper, ca.
Andrea Solari, after Leonardo da Vinci, oil on canvas, currently in the Leonardo da Vinci Museum, Tongerlo Abbey. The Last Supper measures 4. The theme was a traditional one for refectories, although the room was not a refectory at the time that Leonardo painted it.
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The main church building had only recently been completed (in 1. Bramante, hired by Ludovico Sforza to build a Sforza family mausoleum. The opposite wall of the refectory is covered by the Crucifixion fresco by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, to which Leonardo added figures of the Sforza family in tempera. The beginning date is not certain, as the archives of the convent for the period have been destroyed, and a document dated 1.
He wrote to the head of the monastery, explaining he had been struggling to find the perfect villainous face for Judas, and that if he could not find a face corresponding with what he had in mind, he would use the features of the prior who complained. All twelve apostles have different reactions to the news, with various degrees of anger and shock. The apostles are identified from a manuscript. Judas is wearing green and blue and is in shadow, looking rather withdrawn and taken aback by the sudden revelation of his plan.
He is clutching a small bag, perhaps signifying the silver given to him as payment to betray Jesus, or perhaps a reference to his role within the 1. This may be related to the near- Eastern expression to . He is the only person to have his elbow on the table and his head is also horizontally the lowest of anyone in the painting.
Peter looks angry and is holding a knife pointed away from Christ, perhaps foreshadowing his violent reaction in Gethsemane during Jesus' arrest. The youngest apostle, John, appears to swoon. Jesus. Apostle Thomas, James the Greater, and Philip are the next group of three. Thomas is clearly upset; the raised index finger foreshadows his incredulity of the Resurrection. James the Greater looks stunned, with his arms in the air. Meanwhile, Philip appears to be requesting some explanation.
Matthew, Jude Thaddeus, and Simon the Zealot are the final group of three. Both Jude Thaddeus and Matthew are turned toward Simon, perhaps to find out if he has any answer to their initial questions. In common with other depictions of the Last Supper from this period, Leonardo seats the diners on one side of the table, so that none of them has his back to the viewer. Most previous depictions excluded Judas by placing him alone on the opposite side of the table from the other eleven disciples and Jesus, or placing halos around all the disciples except Judas. Leonardo instead has Judas lean back into shadow. Jesus is predicting that his betrayer will take the bread at the same time he does to Saints Thomas and James to his left, who react in horror as Jesus points with his left hand to a piece of bread before them. Distracted by the conversation between John and Peter, Judas reaches for a different piece of bread not noticing Jesus too stretching out with his right hand towards it (Matthew 2.
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The angles and lighting draw attention to Jesus, whose head is located at the vanishing point for all perspective lines. The painting contains several references to the number 3, which represents the Christian belief in the Holy Trinity. The Apostles are seated in groupings of three; there are three windows behind Jesus; and the shape of Jesus' figure resembles a triangle. There may have been other references that have since been lost as the painting deteriorated. Important copies. The copies are almost the size of the original, and have survived with a wealth of original detail still intact. Ambrogio in Ponte Capriasca, Switzerland.
A third copy (oil on canvas) is painted by Andrea Solari (ca. Leonardo da Vinci Museum of the Tongerlo Abbey, Belgium. For this work, Leonardo sought a greater detail and luminosity than could be achieved with traditional fresco. Because a fresco cannot be modified as the artist works, Leonardo instead chose to seal the stone wall with a double layer of dried plaster. This was a method that had been described previously, by Cennino Cennini in the 1. However, Cennini had recommended the use of secco for the final touches alone. This photo shows the bombing damage in 1.
Because the painting was on a thin exterior wall, the effects of humidity were felt more keenly, and the paint failed to properly adhere to the wall. Because of the method used, soon after the painting was completed on February 9, 1. By 1. 55. 6—fewer than sixty years after it was finished—Leonardo's biographer. Giorgio Vasari described the painting as already . By the second half of the sixteenth century Gian Paolo Lomazzo stated that . It is believed, through early copies, that Jesus' feet were in a position symbolizing the forthcoming crucifixion.
In 1. 76. 8, a curtain was hung over the painting for the purpose of protection; it instead trapped moisture on the surface, and whenever the curtain was pulled back, it scratched the flaking paint. A first restoration was attempted in 1. Michelangelo Bellotti, who filled in missing sections with oil paint then varnished the whole mural. This repair did not last well and another restoration was attempted in 1. Giuseppe Mazza. Mazza stripped off Bellotti's work then largely repainted the painting; he had redone all but three faces when he was halted due to public outrage. In 1. 79. 6, French revolutionary anti- clerical troops used the refectory as an armory; they threw stones at the painting and climbed ladders to scratch out the Apostles' eyes.
The refectory was then later used as a prison; it is not known if any of the prisoners may have damaged the painting. In 1. 82. 1, Stefano Barezzi, an expert in removing whole frescoes from their walls intact, was called in to remove the painting to a safer location; he badly damaged the center section before realizing that Leonardo's work was not a fresco. Barezzi then attempted to reattach damaged sections with glue.
From 1. 90. 1 to 1. Luigi Cavenaghi first completed a careful study of the structure of the painting, then began cleaning it. In 1. 92. 4, Oreste Silvestri did further cleaning, and stabilised some parts with stucco. During World War II, on August 1.
Allied bombing; protective sandbagging prevented the painting from being struck by bomb splinters, but it may have been damaged further by the vibration. From 1. 95. 1 to 1. Mauro Pelliccioli. Major restoration. From 1. 97. 8 to 1. Pinin Brambilla Barcilon guided a major restoration project which undertook to stabilize the painting, and reverse the damage caused by dirt and pollution. The 1. 8th- and 1.
Since it had proved impractical to move the painting to a more controlled environment, the refectory was instead converted to a sealed, climate- controlled environment, which meant bricking up the windows. Then, detailed study was undertaken to determine the painting's original form, using scientific tests (especially infrared reflectoscopy and microscopic core- samples), and original cartoons preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Some areas were deemed unrestorable. These were re- painted using watercolor in subdued colors intended to indicate they were not original work, while not being too distracting. This restoration took 2. May 1. 99. 9, the painting was returned to display.
Intending visitors were required to book ahead and could only stay for 1. When it was unveiled, considerable controversy was aroused by the dramatic changes in colors, tones, and even some facial shapes. James Beck, professor of art history at Columbia University and founder of Art. Watch International, had been a particularly strong critic. He has been critical of Christ's right arm in the image which has been altered from a draped sleeve to what Daley calls . Some of the more notable examples are: Painting, mosaic, and photography. It reveals many details that are no longer visible on the original.
It is reputed to be one of the most popular paintings in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. In 1. 98. 6, Andy Warhol was commissioned to produce a series of paintings based on The Last Supper that were exhibited initially in Milan.
This was his last series of paintings before his death. This work, Self- Portrait Looking at The Last Supper, (1. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The oil painting was sold for $2. Sotheby's auction on October 7, 2. Asian artwork. How vain are copies!
Majesty and love—these are the words that would describe it—joined to an absence of all guile that expresses the divine nature more visibly than I ever saw it in any other picture. Another beggar 'photographs' the scene by flashing them. This scene contributed to its refusal by the Vatican who called it . This speculation originated in earlier books The Templar Revelation (1. Lynn Picknett and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh (1.
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