The Last Supper

Leonardo's "Last Supper" is a priceless piece of art with much hidden meaning and obvious talents

bestowed upon a wall. Under the study of Verrocchio as a painter and a sculptor, he was able to use his

skills in creating a very detailed and a very naturalistic piece of work that would be remembered for

hundreds of years. He was also able to create characters with amazing individuality. Not only was his

portrayal of the characters magnificent, but the symbolism he used which emphasized the story being told

in the "Last Supper".

Lodovico Sforza chose Leonardo to create "The Last Supper" in the refectory of the Dominican

Church of S. Maria delle Grazie in Milan. The Abate of the S. Maria delle Grazie saw Leonardo work

from morning until night on "The Last Supper" without eating. Although, there were times he would stop

painting for days at a time; or, he would work on a specific character for just a few moments and then

leave to continue working on it later. He worked on it from 1495 through

1498 (Strauss, 27).

Before Leonardo began painting the actual portrait, he put down a substance which was suppose to

absorb the tempora and protect the tempora from the moisture on the wall. Unfortunately, the substance

was proved unsuccessful, and by 1517 it began to deteriorate.

In May 1556 a painter Giovanni Batista Armenini said that the painting was Ð''so badly affected that

nothing is visible but a mass of blots'(Heydenreich, 18). The painting has continued to decay in the

following centuries. It was further damaged by restorations made by careless artists and by the addition

of a doorway put in the lower part of the painting. Yet even to this day his painting "The Last Supper"

is widely known and visited by many tourists each year.

The remembrance of the "Last Supper" could be due to the sacredness of the parting meal. It is

quite obvious that the skill used in the creation of the "Last Supper" was magnificent. Although, the

way Leonardo allows its viewers to depict the scene from a specific point in the Bible adds to the

importance and significance of the painting in which no other artist could even compare. He does allow

the viewer to recognize this scene by the gestures of both the Lord and the Apostles. The Lord sits ever

so quietly while the Apostles rise in reaction to what the Lord had just announced. It is rather obvious

that Leonardo chose the critical moment after the Lord had stated, Ð''Verily I say unto you that one of you

shall betray me,' because of the emotions that evolve in this specific scene (Matt. 26.21).

He took much time to express every detail of each Apostle and the Lord. Leonardo had even wrote

in one of his notebooks that "A good painter has two chief objects to paint man and the intention of his

soul. The former is easy, the latter hard because he has to represent it by the attitude and movement of

the limbs"(Heydenreich, 27). For example, the Lord is very relaxed with his arms resting on the table

which adds to the portrayal of His greatness. He also emphasized the Lord's greatness by giving Him a

serious attitude and by presenting Him as untouchable with the space between Himself and the Apostles.

The distance put between them is called the spacial perspective, which is one of the techniques Leonardo

feels is important in naturalistic art. Although, the Apostles are painted in a more restless fashion.

They are all facing different ways and seem to be jumping out of their seats. Even the grouping of the

apostles in three was done intentionally. He used four gr!

oups of three Apostles in each group in order to symbolize the Holy Trinity which means three, and the

four groups were used to symbolize the Gospels and the Cardinal Virtues . He was very cautious in every

aspect of his painting from the placement of the figures to the movement they each possessed. Leonardo

had to create actions and various postures which would be appropriate for each figure in order to keep

them from looking as if they were brothers.

Monica Strauss stated that in her research she had found that "for the first time in the history

of the subject, Leonardo had distinguished each one by appearance and gesture"(Strauss, 27). For each

of the twelve Apostles he had to not only resort to the historical information on their names and on

their appearances but also by the portrayal of their specific qualities as they are known to us from the

Gospels. For instance, Judas was put outside the circle of the innocent Apostles and only his shadowed

profile can be found. He is the only one to be found sitting in the shadows and in solitude. This

allows the viewer to see the guilt he had, for he knew he was the one who would betray the Lord Jesus.

He is also frozen in shock, and he is an outcast in the group. The significance of the portrayal of

Judas is very important because in earlier pictures of the Last Supper, no one had ever