Where is Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" - the famous fresco. Secrets

Leonardo da Vinci's painting "The Last Supper" anticipates new stage development of Italian art - High Renaissance.

The illusory space visually continues the real space of the refectory. The planes of the side walls and ceiling extending into the depths act as an illusory continuation of the walls and ceiling of the refectory, but do not completely coincide with them due to their somewhat forced spatial perspective. In addition, the table with the figures sitting behind it is located slightly above the floor level of the refectory, and the figures are not shown in life size, but slightly larger. Thus, the impression of complete optical unity of real and illusory spaces is eliminated, their relationship becomes more complicated, losing its uniqueness. The sacred action is no longer mixed with everyday and everyday affairs and appears more important and significant.

Even more striking is the impression of extreme tension of the plot collision that Leonardo’s fresco leaves. It is achieved through a carefully thought-out composition of a pictorial story about the gospel event. The moment is shown when Jesus has just uttered his words: “... one of you who eats with Me will betray Me,” and therefore all compositional trajectories are drawn towards his figure - not only the optical, but also the semantic center of the work. Lonely and isolated from the rest, additionally highlighted by the image of a window behind Christ’s back, falling into the focus of the convergence of perspective lines, his figure acts as a sign of unshakable calm and unshakable confidence in the correctness of the chosen path. The spatial “pauses” on either side of her are visually read as an image of a truly “deathly” silence that immediately followed his words, giving way to a discord of bewildered exclamations and the unison sounding “isn’t it me?”

Each of the figures of the apostles represents certain type expression, using the language of facial expressions and gestures personifying bewilderment, anger, fear. To bring all this diversity together emotional movements, Leonardo subjects the image to strict compositional discipline. You can notice that the apostles are united in groups, three in each, which is why, in contrast to each other, their figures receive additional expressiveness. With this principle of compositional grouping, the internal rhythm of the action is revealed with amazing clarity, moreover, it gets the opportunity to develop over time. In fact, each group represents a certain stage of understanding the words heard from the Teacher. An explosion of emotions, the epicenter of which is in the center of the table, where Jesus sits, in the form of a weakening echo reaches the ends of the table, from where, through the gestures of the apostles sitting at its ends, it returns to its starting point - the figure of Christ.

A recent spate of books and articles has increasingly suggested that Leonardo da Vinci was the leader of an underground society and what he hid in his artistic works secret codes and messages. Is it true? In addition to his role in history as famous artist, scientist and inventor, was he also the keeper of some great secret that has been passed down through the centuries?

CIPHERS AND ENCRYPTION. LEONARDO DA VINCI'S ENCRYPTION METHOD.

Leonardo was, of course, no stranger to the use of codes and encryption. All his notes are written backwards, mirrored. Why exactly Leonardo did this remains unclear. It has been suggested that he may have felt that some of his military inventions would be too destructive and powerful if they fell into the wrong hands. Therefore, he protected his papers using the write-back method. Other scientists point out that this type of encryption is too simple, because to decipher it you just need to hold the paper up to the mirror. If Leonardo used it for security, he was probably concerned with hiding the contents only from the casual observer.

Other researchers believe that he used backward writing simply because it was easier for him. Leonardo was left-handed, and writing backwards was less difficult for him than for a right-hander.

CRYPTEX

IN Lately many people credit Leonardo with inventing a mechanism called the cryptex. A cryptex is a tube that consists of a series of rings with the letters of the alphabet engraved on them. When the rings are turned so that some of the letters line up to form the password to open the cryptex - one of the end caps can be removed and the contents (usually a piece of papyrus wrapped around a glass container of vinegar) can be removed. If someone tries to get the contents by breaking the device, the glass container inside will crack and the vinegar will dissolve what is written on the papyrus.

In his popular book(fiction) The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown credits the invention of the cryptex to Leonardo da Vinci. But real evidence the fact that it was da Vinci who invented and/or designed this device is not true.

SECRETS OF THE MONA LISA PAINTING BY LEONARDO DA VINCI. THE SECRET OF GIOCONDA'S SMILE.

One popular idea is that Leonardo wrote secret symbols or messages in his works. Having analyzed his most famous painting, "Mona Lisa", many are sure that Leonardo used some tricks when creating the painting. Many people find Mona Lisa's smile particularly haunting. They say that it appears to change even though there is no change in the properties of the paint on the surface of the painting.

Professor Margaret Livingston of Harvard University suggests that Leonardo painted the edges of the portrait's smile so that they appear slightly out of focus. Because of this, they are easier to see in peripheral vision than when looking directly at them. This may explain why some people report that the portrait appears to smile more when they look directly at the smile.

Another theory, proposed by Christopher Tyler and Leonid Kontsevich of the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, says that smiling appears to change due to variable levels of random noise in the human visual system. If you close your eyes in a dark room, you will notice that everything is not perfectly black. The cells in our eyes create low levels of "background noise" (we see this as tiny light and dark spots). Our brains usually filter this out, but Tyler and Kontsevich suggested that when looking at the Mona Lisa, these little dots could change the shape of her smile. To prove their theory, they placed several random sets of dots on the Mona Lisa painting and showed it to people. Some of the respondents said that Gioconda’s smile looked more joyful than usual, others thought on the contrary, that the dots darkened the portrait. Tyler and Kontsevich argue that noise, which is inherent in the human visual system, has the same effect. When someone looks at a painting, their visual system adds noise to the image and changes it, making the smile appear to change.

Why does Mona Lisa smile? Over the years, people have speculated: some thought she might have been pregnant, others found the smile sad and suggested she was unhappy in her marriage.

Dr. Lillian Schwartz from research center Bell Labs has come up with a theory that seems unlikely but intriguing. She thinks that Gioconda is smiling because the artist was playing a joke on the audience. She claims that the picture is not of a smiling young woman, that in fact it is a self-portrait of the artist himself. Schwartz noticed that when she used a computer to identify features in the Mona Lisa portrait and Da Vinci's self-portrait, they matched exactly. However, other experts note that this may be a result of both portraits being painted with the same paints and brushes, by the same artist, and using the same methods writing.

THE SECRET OF THE PICTURE THE LAST SUPPER BY LEONARDO DA VINCI.

Dan Brown in his popular thriller The Da Vinci Code suggests that Leonardo's painting The Last Supper has a number of hidden meanings and symbols. In the fictional story, there is an early church conspiracy to suppress the importance of Mary Magdalene, a follower of Jesus Christ (history records - to the chagrin of many believers - that she was his wife). Allegedly, Leonardo was the head of a secret order of people who knew the truth about Magdalene and tried to preserve it. One way Leonardo did this was to leave clues in his famous work, The Last Supper.

The painting depicts Jesus' last meal with his disciples before his death. Leonardo tries to capture the moment when Jesus announces that he will be betrayed, and that one of the men at the table will be his betrayer. Most significant key What Leonardo left behind, according to Brown, is that the disciple identified in the painting as John is actually Mary Magdalene. Indeed, if you take a quick look at the picture, it seems that this is really the case. The man pictured to the right of Jesus has long hair and smooth skin, which could be considered as female characteristics, compared to the rest of the apostles, who look a little rougher and appear older. Brown also points out that Jesus and the figure on his right hand together form the outline of the letter "M". Does this symbolize Mary or perhaps the wife (Matrimony in English for marriage, matrimony)? Are these the keys to secret knowledge left behind by Leonardo?

Despite the first impression that this figure looks more feminine in the picture, the question remains whether this figure also looked feminine to viewers of the era in which Leonardo painted this picture. Probably not. After all, John was considered the youngest of the disciples, and he was often depicted as a beardless youth with soft features and long hair. Today we can regard this person as a female being, but if we go back to Florence, in the fifteenth century, take into account the difference in cultures and expectations, try to delve into the ideas of those times about the feminine and masculine- You can no longer be sure that this is actually a woman. Leonardo was not the only artist who depicted John in this way. Domenico Ghirlandaio and Andrea del Castagno wrote John in a similar way in their paintings:

"The Last Supper" by Domenico Ghirlandaio

In his Treatise on Painting, Leonardo explains that characters in a painting should be depicted based on their types. These types can be: "sage" or "crone". Each type has its own characteristics, for example: beard, wrinkles, short or long hair. John, as in the photo, at the Last Supper, represents the student type: a protege who has not yet matured. Artists of the era, including Leonardo, would have depicted this type, the "student", as very young man with soft features. This is exactly what we see in the picture.

Regarding the outline of the "M" in the picture, this is a result of the way the artist composed the picture. Jesus, at the moment when he announces his betrayal, sits alone in the center of the picture, his body shaped like a pyramid, the disciples arranged in groups on either side of him. Leonardo often used the pyramid shape in the compositions of his works.

PRIORITY OF SION.

There are suggestions that Leonardo was the leader of a secret group called the Priory of Sion. According to the Da Vinci Code, the Priory's mission was to preserve Mary Magdalene's secret about her marriage to Jesus. But The Da Vinci Code is fiction, based on theories from a controversial "non-fiction" book called Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Richard Lee, Michael Baigent and Henry Lincoln, written in the early 1980s.

The book Holy Blood and Holy Grail, as evidence of Leonardo's membership in the Priory of Sion, cites a number of documents that are stored in the National Library of France in Paris. While there is some evidence that an order of monks with this name existed as early as 1116 AD. e., and this medieval group has nothing in common with the Priory of Sion of the 20th century, but the years of da Vinci’s life: 1452 - 1519.

There are indeed documents confirming the existence of the Priory, but it is likely that they are part of a hoax conceived by a man named Pierre Plantard in the 1950s. Plantard and a group of like-minded right-wingers with anti-Semitic tendencies founded the Priory in 1956. By producing false documents, including forged genealogical tables, Plantard apparently hoped to prove that he was a Merovingian descendant and heir to the French throne. A document allegedly indicating that Leonardo, along with such luminaries as Botticelli, Isaac Newton and Hugo, were members of the Priory of Sion organization - with high probability, may also be fake.

It is unclear whether Pierre Plantard also tried to perpetuate the story of Mary Magdalene. He is known to have claimed that the Priory possessed the treasure. Not a collection of priceless documents, as in the Da Vinci Code, but a list of sacred objects written on a copper scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in the 50s. Plantard told interviewers that the Priory will return this treasure to Israel when " the time will come"Experts' opinions on this matter are divided: some believe that there is no scroll, some believe that it is fake, and some that it is real, but does not rightfully belong to the Priory.

The fact that Leonardo da Vinci was not a member secret society, as shown in The Da Vinci Code, is no reason to stop admiring his talent. Enabling this historical figure into contemporary fiction is intriguing, but in no way overshadows his achievements. His works of art have been and are a source of inspiration for millions over the centuries and contain subtleties that even the best experts are still trying to unravel. Moreover, his experiments and inventions characterize him as a progressive thinker whose research goes far beyond the scope of his contemporaries. Main secret Leonardo da Vinci is that he was a genius, but at that time not many people could understand this.

Date of creation: 1495-1497.
Type: tempera.
Dimensions: 460*880 cm.

Last Supper

One of famous masters Renaissance received an order for a large-scale fresco depicting the Last Supper in the refectory of the Church of Santa Maria Grazie in Milan. It is obvious that Lodovico Sforza was the initiator of this order, since he wished to make a generous gift to the Dominican brotherhood. The coat of arms of the Sforza family can be seen in the arch located above the room where the Last Supper takes place.

Philip, Matthew, Judas Thaddeus.

In the first sketches of the composition, Vinci intended to depict the moment of handing over a piece of bread to Judas, which meant that Christ would be betrayed by this particular apostle. However, in the version that has come down to us, the concept has been changed. The master does not depict a fragment of Christ's Holy Week. Thanks to what scholars know about the preparatory phase of the fresco's creation, it is clear that Leonardo, in the final version of the work, chose to depict the moment of Judas's identification as a traitor.

Bartholomew, James the Younger, Andrew.

The painting depicts Christ at the Easter meal with the apostles. In the room behind Christ and the apostles there are three windows, from which a view of the surrounding landscape opens. Leonardo meticulously painted distant trees and hills: this landscape is reminiscent of Milanese landscapes. The artist managed to achieve the effect of a three-dimensional image by making the table part of the refectory wall. As it is written in the Gospel (Matthew 26: 17-29), the table for this supper was set with Passover dishes, fruits and wine. In Leonardo's fresco there are dishes with eel and oranges - the artist's favorite food. All the apostles sit along the table, on the side opposite from the viewer, which makes it possible to observe even their shoes under the table. The tablecloth is painted realistically and the dishes standing on it, to the right and left of the table, the edges of the tablecloth hang in exactly the same way.

Simon Peter (behind), Judas, John.

Leonardo divides 12 figures into 4 subgroups, three people each, creating a canvas where each of the heroes has individual traits: They shout, talk, turn around, their faces express disbelief and confusion. The variety of angles, poses and gestures resemble an illustration of the physical laws of optics and dynamics. Like a drop falling into a stationary container of water, the words about the betrayal of one of the apostles upset the state of balance. This analogy, coupled with studies of Leonardo’s optics, makes us consider the fresco as a set of achievements of science and visual arts.

Thomas, James the Elder, Philip.

Christ

The figure of Christ is located in the center of the picture, as always in paintings on gospel story. Leonardo depicts him as a young man. The calm expression on his face evokes surprise and distrust among the apostles that one of those gathered at this table would betray him. Leonardo conveys precisely this moment of the meal, contrasting the peace of Jesus with the excitement of his disciples, who look at each other, gesticulate, wondering which of them could decide to do this. Every now and then they turn to Christ with the question: “Is it not I, Lord?..” - and with a shudder of heart they wait for the answer. Leonardo places the figure of Christ in the center of the table. All the compositional lines of the picture converge at one point - towards the head of Christ, creating a centripetal perspective.

Arch

The central arch depicts the coat of arms of Lodovico Sforza and his wife, the inscription reads: LU(dovicus) MA(ria) BE(atrix) EST(ensis) SF(ortia) AN(glus) DUX (mediolani). In the arch on the left is the coat of arms of Lodovico's son Massimiliano with text. The text in the right arch is adjacent to the coat of arms of the Duke of Bari, belonging to Lodovico's second son, Francesco.

Fresco in our time

Fatal mistakes in early attempts to restore the painting had a detrimental effect on both the original colors of the fresco and on the expressions of faces and the outlines of figures. But the latest stage marked a new milestone in restoration methodology, and also shed light on some of the details hidden under the layers of paint applied after Leonardo put down his brush. In addition, it became known about complex experiments with lighting, about conceptual ideas regarding perspective.

Of course, a work of such scale, such detail and importance for both art and science, asks more questions than it answers, and also deserves a more detailed acquaintance with itself. Historians and art historians devote their lives to researching the masterpiece, gradually revealing some of the secrets of the fresco, but all the riddles and messages of the great Leonardo are unlikely to be deciphered.

Fresco "The Last Supper" updated: September 12, 2017 by: Gleb

Rejecting the far-fetched, false heroism of Italian academics who believed progress contemporary art not in a living connection with life, but in bringing him as close as possible to the ideals and forms of past eras, Rembrandt at the same time deeply studied the works of masters Italian Renaissance. In particular, three of his drawings from Leonardo da Vinci’s fresco “The Last Supper” have been preserved...

When thirty-year-old Leonardo da Vinci arrived in Milan in 1482, he found himself in a real whirlpool of festivities and amusements. Handsome, gifted, a wonderful singer and musician, he became the center of a brilliant society. “He can do everything, knows everything,” one of his contemporaries wrote about him, “an excellent archer and crossbow shooter, a horseman, a swimmer, a master of sword fencing; he is left-handed, but bends iron horseshoes with his gentle and thin left hand.”

Leonardo da Vinci was a great mathematician who developed the theory of visual perspective, and an outstanding anatomist who studied the internal organs of humans from the human corpses he himself dissected. He was drawn to military affairs. He knew how to build light bridges, came up with new guns and ways to destroy fortresses. He invented previously unknown explosives. A cherished dream his goal was to create a heavier-than-air aircraft. In his manuscripts we find the world's first drawings of a parachute and a helicopter.

Leonardo entered the history of art as greatest painter Italian high Renaissance along with Raphael and Michelangelo. A year after arriving in Milan, Leonardo began working on his brilliant picture"Madonna of the Rocks", now located in the Louvre in Paris. He embodied in it his idea of ​​a wonderful person and wrote it for eleven years.

Immediately after finishing the Madonna of the Rocks, Leonardo moved on to his greatest creation- fresco for the Milan monastery dining room (the so-called refectory) “The Last Supper”. For two years, 1495 and 1496, he worked from sunrise to evening darkness. Without letting go of the brush, he painted the fresco continuously, forgetting about food and drink. “And it happened that two, three, four days would pass and he would not touch the painting,” wrote a contemporary.

The refectory of the Maria della Grazia monastery was large, and the fresco was designed so that all thirteen characters would fit on the free space of the wall, eight hundred and eighty centimeters long and four hundred and sixty centimeters high. Each figure turned out to be one and a half times larger than ordinary human height, but they are visible to the viewer only from the waist up.

Let us recall the legendary events that precede the plot of Leonardo's fresco. On Tuesday evening of Holy Week, Jesus Christ pointed out to his disciples Easter as the time of his violent death. Immediately after this, Judas, one of the twelve apostles, secretly left his fellow men and appeared before the Sanhedrin, the council of elders and aristocrats of Jerusalem. What motives guided this man, whether Judas himself demanded payment for the blood he offered, or whether it was offered to him, there is no answer to this question. Evangelists only say that Satan entered into him. The payment given to Judas for betrayal was insignificant, thirty shekels, the price of a slave unfit for work.

By evening on Thursday, when the gathering darkness could relieve the ubiquitous informers from observation, the Savior with twelve disciples entered Jerusalem unnoticed. We see them already gathered in the large upper room, ready for the last supper. The table is set. The place of honor was the middle one, and it was occupied by Christ. The apostles positioned themselves on either side of him in four groups of three: six to the left of Christ, six to the right. Judas is depicted turning to Christ in profile with an expression of false devotion and secret fear on his rough, predatory face; third to the left of Christ, that is, fourth from the left edge of the fresco.

By placing the table at which Christ and the apostles are sitting parallel to the wall that is decorated with the fresco, Leonardo seems to continue the real space of the refectory where the viewer is located. It turns out that we and Christ and the apostles are in the same gigantic room on opposite sides of a horizontally elongated table.

The depiction of the situation is kept to a minimum. A long table, covered with a patterned golden tablecloth and modest tableware, is sharply extended towards the viewer. Behind it is meant a large space two or three dozen steps from us, closed by a rectangle of the opposite wall with three bright windows. At the same time, Christ, towering above the rest of the apostles, appears against the backdrop of the middle, largest window. From the upper corners of the fresco, the lines where the ceiling meets the side walls rapidly descend towards his head.

The composition of “The Last Supper” is based on the simplest geometric structure: a triangle resting on the lower edge of the fresco. Its sides are the edges of the table and the spread hands of Christ placed on the table. The vertex of the triangle coincides with the one swinging in right side from the viewer with the naked head of Christ. Thus, Christ blocks the main vanishing point, which goes into the depths of the parallel.

The rectangular frame of the central window in the depths turns into a kind of frame for a chest-length portrait of Christ. Outside the window, to the left of his face, one can see distant, distant mountains, at the foot of which a river flows. Clouds float above the Savior’s head, and space, penetrating through the windows into the refectory, gently envelops all people and objects with its mysterious penumbra. The gaze of the disciples and the gestures of their hands are directed towards Christ, and this draws even more attention to his figure. But they do not see Christ the way we see him, guessing the universe behind him.

This impression is achieved through linear perspective. The significance of Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" in world art is determined, firstly, by the fact that here for the first time the problem of the synthesis of painting and architecture was completely resolved, bringing them into a single artistic spiritualized whole. Secondly, Leonardo's fresco opened up European painting a completely new area - area psychological conflict. Not content with depicting this gospel scene as real event, Leonardo first interpreted it as an exposure and condemnation of betrayal.

Before the start of the supper, Christ, consciously likening himself to a slave, washed the feet of the disciples, wiping them with his belt. At the table, he explained to them his action as a good and merciful deed. “But they should do the same with each other,” he said, “they should learn humility, self-denial and love for people.”

“Blessed are those who will understand that the struggle for advantages, pretentiousness and insistence on the rights of their dignity, the passion for power constitute the distinctive properties of tyranny and pagan immaturity; and the greatest of Christians must be the most humble,” he once again warned, “not to expect earthly reward or earthly blessings; his throne and kingdom are not of this world.”

Then his speech became sad. Among his companions is a man who has already brought a curse on his own head. On this night everyone will leave him, even those most beloved by him, but that’s not all. On this night, even the most courageous of them will renounce him on oath three times, but that’s not all. Truly I say to you, one of you will betray me.

Behind the middle of the table, along the main axis of the fresco, the half-figure of Christ, representing the logical center of the narrative, is separated by spaces from the figures of the apostles. Jesus is wearing a red-orange slave's robe - a chiton with a round hole for the head. A light blue cloak is thrown over the left shoulder. The spread arms rest firmly on the table, the left one facing palm up. Prophetic words have been spoken. And now a wave passes through the row of disciples, as if consisting of twelve figures, counting first in one direction and then in the other direction from Christ: impact, rotation, reflection, reversal, heaving, slope, ascent, swiftness, slowing down, deepening, and so on, up to the exhaustion of movement in the extreme figures that close the composition. These are all Leonardo's own terms.

So, like a stone thrown into water, generating ever more divergent circles across its surface, the words of Christ, falling in the midst of dead silence, cause the greatest movement in this assembly, which was previously in a state of complete peace.

Particularly expressive is the group of apostles on the right hand of Christ, that is, to the left of the viewer, which captivates the viewer with the contrasting characters and feelings of the individuals composing it. The news of betrayal seemed to paralyze the gentle young man with a soft heart, the beloved disciple of Christ, John. Golden curls frame his feminine face, his hands lie on the table, his fingers intertwined inactively. Tilting his head to our left, he listens to the swift and angry gray-bearded Peter, the supreme apostle, who, clutching a knife in his right hand, whispers something in his ear.

And finally, between Peter and the table, pressed against the table, short, with tousled hair, immersed in the shadows, turning to us in profile, Judas looks intensely and hypnotically at Christ. The pointedness of the hooked nose converging with the chin, the protruding crooked lower lip, the low sloping forehead - all these Judas-like features express the unity of physical and moral deformity.

When others discussed among themselves about who had betrayed, he remained silent with the insolence and contemptuous bitterness of a criminal. But now, stung by the stunning horror with which everyone else looked at the very possibility of betrayal, he himself dared to ask a vile and shameless question. Leaning to the left of us, falling with the elbow of his right hand, squeezing the wallet, onto the table, so that the salt shaker fell and rolled, he seemed to be protecting himself from exposure with his outstretched left hand, while his right hand convulsively pressed the wallet to his chest. So, crouching, fearing exposure, glaring at Christ with a piercing gaze overwhelmed by ingratitude, he hoarsely whispers with the causticity of daring mockery: “Isn’t it me, rabbi?”

The face of Christ is like a running wave. It changes, it lives and breathes. It is in the making, it is a play of thoughts and feelings. It is a promise of subsequent achievements in world portrait art. It is a harbinger of Rembrandt's later faces. It is sad with that sadness that is more durable than steel and stone. “You said,” comes the quiet, reproachful answer, imprinting the guilt of the traitor.

Just as sometimes on stormy nights the wind breaks through the cracked walls of some abandoned place with a wild howl, so envy and hatred rage in Judas’s destructive soul. “Whatever you do, do it quickly,” Christ will continue loudly. And Judas will immediately understand what these words mean. “Your vile plan has matured, carry it out without any flattering hypocrisy and useless delays.” And the traitor will leave the table and leave the perplexed meeting.

The shadowed, evil profile of Judas among the brightly lit faces of the rest of the apostles. The storm of passions in the soul of the traitor and his fear allow Leonardo to distinguish Judas from the other apostles and make his role clear to the viewer. Never before have European masters put so many observations of the life of the human soul into their frescoes and paintings.
Main character drama is majestically simple and calm. In suffering itself, Christ acquires nobility, but his image was not easy for Leonardo. Subsequently it was reported that the artist could not finish his head for a long time. But with his vigilance in studying the passions and weaknesses of man, Leonardo seems to anticipate his younger contemporary - the Italian politician, historian and writer Niccolo Machiavelli, who called for renouncing the idealization of human nature and proceeding in politics from the position that people are ungrateful, changeable, hypocritical, cowardly in the face of danger, and greedy for profit.

Anatoly Verzhbitsky. "The Works of Rembrandt."

“The Last Supper” (Italian: Il Cenacolo or L’Ultima Cena) is a fresco by Leonardo da Vinci depicting the scene of Christ’s last supper with his disciples. Created in 1495-1498 in the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

General information

The dimensions of the image are approximately 450x870 cm, it is located in the refectory of the monastery, on the back wall. The theme is traditional for this kind of premises. The opposite wall of the refectory is covered with a fresco by another master; Leonardo also put his hand to it.

Leonardo da Vinci. Last Supper, 1495-1498. Ultima price. 460×880 cm. Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan
Photo clickable

The painting was commissioned by Leonardo from his patron, Duke Ludovico Sforza and his wife Beatrice d'Este. The lunettes above the fresco, formed by a ceiling with three arches, are painted with the Sforza coat of arms. The painting began in 1495 and was completed in 1498; work proceeded intermittently. The date of the start of work is not certain, since "the archives of the monastery were destroyed, and the negligible part of the documents that we have dates back to 1497, when the painting was almost completed."

Three early copies of the fresco are known to exist, presumably by an assistant of Leonardo.

The painting became a milestone in the history of the Renaissance: the correctly reproduced depth of perspective changed the direction of the development of Western painting.

Technique

Leonardo painted The Last Supper on a dry wall, not on wet plaster, so the painting is not a fresco in the true sense of the word. The fresco cannot be changed during work, and Leonardo decided to cover stone wall a layer of resin, plaster and mastic, and then write on this layer with tempera. Due to the chosen method, the painting began to deteriorate just a few years after the completion of the work.
Figures depicted

The apostles are depicted in groups of three, located around the figure of Christ sitting in the center. Groups of apostles, from left to right:

Bartholomew, Jacob Alfeev and Andrey;
Judas Iscariot (in green and blue clothes), Peter and John;
Thomas, James Zebedee and Philip;
Matthew, Judas Thaddeus and Simon.

In the 19th century they were found notebooks Leonardo da Vinci with the names of the apostles; previously only Judas, Peter, John and Christ had been identified with certainty.

Analysis of the picture

The fresco is believed to depict the moment when Jesus utters the words that one of the apostles will betray him (“and while they were eating, he said, “Truly I say to you, one of you will betray me,” and the reaction of each of them.

As in other depictions of the Last Supper of the time, Leonardo places those sitting at the table on one side so that the viewer can see their faces. Majority previous works on this topic they excluded Judas, placing him alone at the part of the table opposite to the one at which the other eleven apostles and Jesus were sitting, or depicting all the apostles except Judas with a halo. Judas clutches a small pouch, perhaps representing the silver he received for betraying Jesus, or an allusion to his role among the twelve apostles as treasurer. He was the only one with his elbow on the table. The knife in Peter's hand, pointing away from Christ, perhaps refers the viewer to the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane during the arrest of Christ.

Jesus' gesture can be interpreted in two ways. According to the Bible, Jesus predicts that his betrayer will reach out to eat at the same time he does. Judas reaches for the dish, not noticing that Jesus is also extending his right hand to him. At the same time, Jesus points to bread and wine, symbolizing the sinless body and shed blood respectively.

The figure of Jesus is positioned and illuminated in such a way that the viewer's attention is drawn primarily to him. The head of Jesus is at a vanishing point for all lines of perspective.

The painting contains repeated references to the number three:

the apostles sit in groups of three;
behind Jesus there are three windows;
the contours of the figure of Christ resemble a triangle.

The light illuminating the entire scene does not come from the windows painted behind, but comes from the left, like the real light from the window on the left wall.

In many places the picture passes golden ratio, for example, where Jesus and John, who is to his right, put their hands, the canvas is divided in this ratio.

Damage and restoration

Already in 1517, the paint of the painting began to peel off due to moisture. In 1556, biographer Leonardo Vasari described the painting as being badly damaged and so deteriorated that the figures were almost unrecognizable. In 1652, a doorway was made through the painting, later blocked with bricks; it can still be seen in the middle of the base of the painting. Early copies suggest that Jesus' feet were in a position symbolizing his impending crucifixion. In 1668, a curtain was hung over the painting for protection; instead, it blocked the evaporation of moisture from the surface, and when the curtain was pulled back, it scratched the peeling paint.

The first restoration was undertaken in 1726 by Michelangelo Belotti, who filled in the missing places oil paint, and then covered the fresco with varnish. This restoration did not last long, and another was undertaken in 1770 by Giuseppe Mazza. Mazza cleaned up Belotti's work and then extensively rewrote the mural: he rewrote all but three faces, and then was forced to stop the work due to public outrage. In 1796, French troops used the refectory as an armory; they threw stones at the paintings and climbed ladders to scratch out the apostles' eyes. The refectory was then used as a prison. In 1821 Stefano Barezzi, known for his ability to remove frescoes from walls with extreme care, was invited to move the painting to a safer place; he seriously damaged the central section before realizing that Leonardo's work was not a fresco. Barezzi attempted to reattach the damaged areas with glue. From 1901 to 1908, Luigi Cavenaghi carried out the first thorough study of the structure of the painting, and then Cavenaghi began clearing it. In 1924, Oreste Silvestri carried out further clearing and stabilized some parts with plaster.

During World War II, on August 15, 1943, the refectory was bombed. Sandbags prevented bomb fragments from entering the painting, but vibration could have had a detrimental effect.

In 1951-1954, Mauro Pelliccoli carried out another restoration with clearing and stabilization.

Main restoration

In the 1970s, the fresco looked badly damaged. From 1978 to 1999, under the leadership of Pinin Brambilla Barcilon, a large-scale restoration project was carried out, the goal of which was to permanently stabilize the painting and get rid of the damage caused by dirt, pollution and improper restorations of the 18th and 19th centuries. Since it was impractical to move the painting to a quieter environment, the refectory itself was converted into such a sealed, climate-controlled environment, which required bricking up the windows. Detailed research was then carried out to determine the original form of the painting using infrared reflectoscopy and examination of core samples, as well as original cartons from the Royal Library of Windsor Castle. Some areas were considered beyond restoration. They were re-painted in muted watercolors to show, without distracting the viewer's attention, that they were not an original work.

The restoration took 21 years. On May 28, 1999, the painting was opened for viewing. Visitors must book tickets in advance and can only spend 15 minutes there. When the fresco was unveiled, heated debate arose over the dramatic changes in colors, tones and even the ovals of the faces of several figures. James Beck, a professor of art history at Columbia University and founder of ArtWatch International, had a particularly harsh assessment of the work.

Santa Maria delle Grazie