Last Supper c1495-98
One of Leonardo’s most famous paintings, and famous during his own lifetime, the Last Supper
is now but a shadow of its former self as it would have appeared on
completion in 1497. A combination of the unorthodox painting techniques
employed by Leonardo, the pervading dampness of the refectory wall and
repeated programmes of restoration that began as early as 1517, have
all contributed to the substantial deterioration of the painting.
However, the most recent campaign of restoration completed in
1999 seems to have halted the deterioration of the painting’s surface
and brought to light the original colour of the work. Furthermore,
previously unobserved details are now apparent, such as the
wall-hangings and their patterns seen on the side walls of the room in
which the “Last Supper” takes place and the objects on the table.
The coats of arms that appear in the lunettes above the
painting indicate that the painting was not commissioned by the monks
of Santa Maria delle Grazie, but by Ludovico Sforza, who was also the
patron of the new choir of the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie,
which was intended as a family mausoleum for Ludovico and his family.
The fact that the Last Supper is described in glowing terms by Luca Pacioli in his Divina Proportione, dedicated to Ludovico Sforza in February 1498, indicates that the painting was probably completed some time in 1497.
Pacioli mentions how the painting describes the moment at which Christ announced, “One of you shall betray me” (Matthew 26:21).
- Medium Oil and tempera on plaster
- Size 460 x 880 cm
- Location Santa Maria delle Grazie
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In what was a highly innovative approach to the traditional
representation of the subject, Leonardo concentrated on the different
reactions of each of the Apostles, conveying their varied emotional
responses through their facial expressions, poses and physical
gestures. Surviving studies for the heads of some of the Apostles
indicate that Leonardo studied the physiognomy and expression of each
individual, working out every detail in drawings.
In the painting, he took the unusual step of arranging the
figures into groups of three in order to avoid the monotony of the
elongated format of the composition as in more traditional
representations of the theme such as Ghirlandaio’s Last Supper
in the refectory of San Marco in Florence. The identities of the
Apostles are derived from the inscriptions with which they are
accompanied in a contemporary copy of the painting, now in Ponte
Capriasca, Lugano. They are generally excepted on this basis as from
left to right, Bartholomew, James the Younger, Andrew, Judas, Peter,
John, all on Christ’s left, and Thomas, James the Elder, Philip,
Matthew, Thaddeus and Simon to the right of Christ.
In the Last Supper, Leonardo employed a system of single
point perspective as a means of unifying the composition, and
replicating the real space of the refectory. In this way, the room in
which the Last Supper takes place appears as a virtual extension of the room in which the viewer is situated.
The perspective system also provided a means of highlighting the
most important element of the composition as the orthogonals converge
fairly precisely in the head of Christ. Leonardo avoided portraying the
event as if viewed from below as was customary, and instead designed
the composition according to an impossible ideal viewing point located
at a distance of 8.80 metres from the painting at an approximate height
of 4.5 metres above the ground.
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