"The Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps, is one of the top 3 most mysterious and controversial works of the famous Italian. A fresco that is not essentially a fresco. An experiment lasting three years. A fertile field for speculation about the meaning of the symbols and the true personalities of those depicted. An impossible challenge for restorers. All this is about one of the most famous works art in the world.
Bad luck begins: who ordered Leonardo's "Last Supper"
In 1494, the odious and ambitious Lodovico Sforza became Duke of Milan. Despite all the ambitions and weaknesses, which, to one degree or another, are inherent, it must be said, in almost every outstanding statesman, Lodovico served a lot for the benefit of his fiefdom and achieved significant diplomatic successes, achieving peaceful relations with Florence, Venice and Rome.He also paid a lot of attention to the development of agriculture, industry, science and culture. Of the painters, he especially favored Leonardo da Vinci. His brush belongs to the portrait of Lodovico’s mistress and mother of his son Cecilia (Cecilia) Gallerani, better known as “The Lady with an Ermine”. Presumably, the painter immortalized the Duke's legal wife Beatrice d'Este, as well as his second favorite and the mother of another illegitimate son, Lucrezia Crivelli.
Lodovico's home church was the chapel at the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and its abbot was a close friend of the duke. The ruler of Milan became a sponsor large-scale reconstruction church, which he saw as a future mausoleum and monument to the Sforza dynasty. The vanity plans were exacerbated by the sudden death of his wife Beatrice and daughter Bianca in 1497, two years after Leonardo began work on The Last Supper.
In 1495, when the painter received an order to paint one of the walls of the refectory chapel with a nine-meter fresco with the popular gospel story, telling about last meeting Christ with the Apostles, where he first revealed the sacrament of the Eucharist to his disciples, no one could even suspect what a long and difficult fate awaited her.
Experimental art of Leonardo da Vinci
Until that moment, da Vinci had not worked with frescoes. But how could this become an obstacle for a person who, of all methods of knowledge, chose the empirical one, and did not take anyone’s word for it, preferring to test everything from his own experience? He acted on the principle “we are not looking for easy ways,” and in this case he remained faithful to him to the end.Instead of using the good old technique of applying tempera to fresh plaster (in fact, which gave the name to the fresco, which comes from the Italian fresco - “fresh”), Leonardo began to experiment. The subject of his experiments consistently became literally all the factors and stages involved in the creation of frescoes, starting from the construction of scaffolding, for which he tried to invent his own mechanisms, and ending with the composition of plaster and paints.
Firstly, the method of working on wet plaster was categorically not suitable for him, which set quite quickly and did not allow him to thoughtfully work on each fragment and endlessly refine it, bringing it to perfection, as Leonardo da Vinci usually painted his paintings. Secondly, traditional egg tempera did not provide the degree of brightness of the colors he needed, since it faded somewhat and changed color when drying. And mixing pigments with oil made it possible to obtain more expressive and brilliant paints. In addition, it was possible to achieve different densities of shades: from very thick and opaque to thin, luminous. This perfectly corresponded to da Vinci’s love for creating filigree light and shadow effects and his signature sfumato technique.
But that's not all. In order to make the oil emulsion more suitable for the requirements of wall painting, the painter decides to add egg yolk to it, thus obtaining a hitherto unprecedented composition of “oil tempera”. As time will tell, in the long term the bold experiment did not justify itself.
It’s time to do: the long history of the creation of “The Last Supper”
According to contemporaries, da Vinci approached all aspects of writing “The Last Supper” with such thoroughness that it dragged on endlessly, and this irritated the abbot of the monastery immensely. Firstly, who will like the state of “chronic repair” in the place where food is eaten with all the nuances that follow (some sources mention the very unpleasant smell of the original composition of Leonardo’s plaster).Secondly, the long process meant a corresponding increase in the financial costs of painting, especially since a whole team worked on it. The scope of the preparatory work alone for the application of plaster, primer and white lead coating requires the involvement of all members of the Leonardo studio.
The abbot's patience gradually came to an end, and he complained to the duke about the slowness and laziness of the artist. According to the legend cited by Vasari in his Lives, da Vinci answered Lodovico in his defense that he could not find a suitable scoundrel to serve as a model for Judas. And that if a person of the required degree of disgusting is never found, he “he can always use the head of this abbot, so annoying and immodest”.
There is another legend about the sitter who posed for the painting of Judas. So beautiful that if the situation is far from reality, it would be worth inventing it. The artist seemed to be looking for his Judas among the very dregs of society, and in the end he chose the last drunkard from the gutter. The “model” could barely stand on her feet and didn’t think much, but when the image of Judas was ready, the drunkard peered at the painting and said that he had already had to pose for her before.
It turned out that three years before these events, when he was a young and chaste singer in a church choir, a certain painter noticed him and offered him the role of a model for the image of Christ. It turns out that the same person, at different periods of his life, happened to be both the embodiment of absolute purity and love, and the prototype of the greatest fall and betrayal. A beautiful parable about the fragile boundaries between good and evil and how hard it is to climb up and easy to roll down.
Escaping beauty: how many Leonardos are left in The Last Supper?
Despite all his efforts and experiments with the composition of the paint, da Vinci still failed to revolutionize the painting of frescoes. It was usually understood that they were made in order to please the eye for many centuries, and the destruction of the paint layer of the Last Supper began during the life of the painter. And already in the middle of the 16th century Vasari mentioned that “nothing is visible except a tangle of spots”.Numerous restorations and attempts to save the painting by the legendary Italian only aggravated the losses. British art critic Kenneth Clark in the 30s of the last century examined preparatory sketches and early copies of “The Last Supper” made by artists who took part in its creation. He compared them with what remained of the fresco, and his conclusions were disappointing: “Exaggerated grimacing faces, as if descended from Michelangelo’s Last Judgment,” belonged to the brush of a feeble mannerist of the 16th century.”.
The last and most extensive restoration was completed in 1999. It took about two decades and required an investment of more than 20 billion liras. And no wonder: the restorers had to work more delicately than jewelry: it was necessary to remove all the layers of early restorations, without damaging the crumbs that remained from the original painting. The head of the restoration work recalled that the fresco was treated like this: “as if she were a real invalid”.
Despite the voices of critics that, as a result, the Last Supper has lost the “spirit of the original,” today it is still closer to what the monks of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie saw before them during the meal. The main paradox is that one of the most famous and recognizable works of art in the world contains only no more than 20 percent of the original.
In fact, this is now the embodiment of a collective interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci’s design, obtained through painstaking research and analysis of all available information. But, as often and densely happens in art world, the difficult fate of the exhibit only adds points and value to it (remember the story of the abduction and discovery of Davinci’s Mona Lisa, which brought her to the absolute top of mass culture).
Plot
The Last Supper is the last meal of Jesus Christ with his 12 disciples. That evening, Jesus established the sacrament of the Eucharist, which consisted of the consecration of bread and wine, and preached about humility and love. Key event evening - a prediction about the betrayal of one of the students.
The closest companions of Jesus - those same apostles - are depicted in groups around Christ, sitting in the center. Bartholomew, Jacob Alfeev and Andrey; then Judas Iscariot, Peter and John; then Thomas, James Zebedee and Philip; and the last three are Matthew, Judas Thaddeus and Simon.
According to one version, according to right hand The closest person from Christ is not John, but Mary Magdalene. If we follow this hypothesis, then her position points to marriage with Christ. This is supported by the fact that Mary Magdalene washed Christ’s feet and dried them with her hair. Only a legal wife could do this.
Nikolai Ge “The Last Supper”, 1863
It is not known exactly what moment of the evening Da Vinci wanted to depict. Probably the reaction of the apostles to the words of Jesus about the impending betrayal of one of the disciples. The argument is the gesture of Christ: according to the prediction, the traitor will stretch out his hand to the food at the same time as the son of God, and the only “candidate” is Judas.
The images of Jesus and Judas were more difficult for Leonardo than others. The artist could not find suitable models. As a result, he based Christ on a singer in a church choir, and Judas on a drunken tramp, who, by the way, was also a singer in the past. There is even a version that Jesus and Judas were based on the same person at different periods of his life.
Context
For the end of the 15th century, when the fresco was created, the reproduced depth of perspective was a revolution that changed the direction of the development of Western painting. To be precise, “The Last Supper” is, rather, not a fresco, but a painting. The fact is that technically it was made on a dry wall, and not on wet plaster, as is the case with frescoes. Leonardo did this so that the images could be corrected. The fresco technique does not give the author the right to make mistakes.
Da Vinci received an order from his regular client, Duke Lodovico Sforza. The latter’s wife, Beatrice d’Este, who patiently endured her husband’s unbridled love for libertines, eventually died suddenly. The Last Supper was a kind of last will deceased.
Lodovico Sforza
Less than 20 years after the creation of the fresco, Da Vinci's work began to crumble due to humidity. After another 40 years, it was almost impossible to recognize the figures. Apparently, contemporaries were not particularly worried about the fate of the work. On the contrary, they in every possible way, wittingly or unwittingly, only worsened his condition. So, in the middle of the 17th century, when the churchmen needed a passage in the wall, they made it in such a way that Jesus lost his legs. Later, the opening was blocked with bricks, but the legs could not be restored.
The French king Francis I was so impressed by the work that he seriously thought about transporting it to his home. And during World War II, the fresco miraculously survived - a shell that hit the church building destroyed everything except the wall with Da Vinci’s work.
Santa Maria delle Grazie
“The Last Supper” was repeatedly tried to be restored, although not particularly successfully. As a result, by the 1970s it became obvious that it was time to act decisively, otherwise the masterpiece would be lost. Colossal work has been carried out over 21 years. Today, visitors to the refectory have only 15 minutes to contemplate the masterpiece, and tickets, of course, must be purchased in advance.
One of the geniuses of the Renaissance, a universal man, was born near Florence - a place where, at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, cultural, political and economic life was extremely rich. Thanks to the families of patrons (such as the Sforza and the Medici), who generously paid for art, Leonardo was able to create freely.
Da Vinci statue in Florence
Da Vinci wasn't high educated person. But his notebooks allow us to speak of him as a genius whose range of interests extended extremely widely. Painting, sculpture, architecture, engineering, anatomy, philosophy. and so on, and so on. And the most important thing here is not the number of hobbies, but the degree of involvement in them. Da Vinci was an innovator. His progressive thought overturned the ideas of his contemporaries and set a new vector for the development of culture.
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"The Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci. Mary Magdalene or the Apostle John?
Truly, there is no secret in the world that would not someday become obvious, for manuscripts do not burn. And we continue to debunk one of the most unscrupulous historical myths regarding the name defamed by the Christian Church Mary Magdalene. Recently, coverage of this topic has become of fundamental importance for us, because Rigden Djappo himself speaks with great respect about her and her “great feat”, which we will definitely come to later, as evidenced by those presented in the book “ Sensei 4. Primordial Shambhala"materials describing completely unknown story this mysterious and beautiful woman. Very soon, in the “Primordial Knowledge” section, we will post the detailed content of this, in our opinion, priceless literary work.
last supper Leonardo da Vinci’s painting is so large-scale and mysterious that for centuries advice and tips have been passed on about what angle to look at it from so as not to miss a single detail. It is believed that you need to move nine meters away from the canvas and rise 3.5 meters up. Such distances seem too large until you remember the enormous dimensions of the painting - 460 by 880 cm.
The name Leonardo is shrouded in many secrets. Over the centuries, people have been trying to unravel the hidden intentions of his creations. the best minds humanity, but it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to fully comprehend the full depth of his genius. However, there are facts that art critics have no doubt about. So, they are sure that the painting was created in 1495-1498 by order of Leonardo’s patron, Duke Ludovico Sforza, who was advised to do so by his meek wife Beatrice d’Este. The fresco is in the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. This is where the unconditional truths end, and space for debate, opinions and reflection begins.
There is ambiguity even in the definition of the painting technique that da Vinci used when creating The Last Supper. Out of habit, I would like to call it a fresco, but this is not so. Fresco is painting on wet plaster, and the artist painted the picture on a dry wall in order to be able to make changes and additions to it in the future.
The work is located on the back wall of the monastery refectory. This arrangement is not strange or accidental: the theme of the picture is the last Easter dinner of Jesus Christ with his disciples and apostles. All depicted figures are located on one side of the table so that the viewer can see the face of each of them. The apostles are grouped in groups of three, and this symbol of three is found in other elements of the picture: in the triangles that themselves form from lines, in the number of windows behind Jesus. Leonardo da Vinci's work differs from a number of paintings on this topic also by the fact that there is no halo over any of the characters he depicts, the viewer is invited to look at events from an exclusively human point of view.
The emotions of each of the apostles are unique and are not repeated by other participants in the action. The viewer has the opportunity to see that they all react in their own way to the words of Jesus Christ, who said:
“...Truly I say to you, one of you will betray Me.”
Leonardo da Vinci worked most carefully on the images of Christ and Judas. Exists interesting legend that they were written by the same person. They say that Leonardo saw the prototype of Jesus in young singer from church choir. Three years passed, and the artist met a completely degraded man, from whom he painted Judas. The model’s confession turned out to be shocking: he was the same young singer, but in a few years he managed to move away from goodness and purity to debauchery and darkness.
The idea that good and evil coexist in our world can also be seen in the color scheme of the painting: the artist used techniques that are based on contrasts.
Many questions regarding the Last Supper remain unanswered, but one thing is certain - this creation is important milestone in the development of painting of the 15th-16th centuries. Thus, it was possible to bring the depth of perspective to a new level and create a sense of volume, which even stereo cinema of our day can envy.
“The Last Supper” is one of the outstanding works of the Renaissance. And one of the most mysterious. Today, the best art historians are working on deciphering the symbols of the fresco. The editors of Interesting to Know have collected the most interesting guesses, versions and proven facts about one of the most recognizable works of Leonardo da Vinci.
"Last Supper"
The famous fresco is located in the refectory of the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan, Italy). And it was commissioned by the artist’s patron, the Duke of Milan, Louis Sforza. . The ruler was a supporter of an openly dissolute life, and his beautiful and modest wife Beatrice d’Este did not in the least prevent the young duke from living the way he was used to. His wife, by the way, loved him deeply and sincerely, and Louis himself was attached to her in his own way. And after sudden death The Duke, in grief, did not leave his room for about two weeks. And when he came out, the first thing he did was turn to da Vinci with a request to paint a fresco, which his wife had asked for during his lifetime. By the way, after the death of Beatrice, the Duke forever stopped all kinds of entertainment at court.
Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan, Italy)
Da Vinci began work on the fresco in 1495; its dimensions are 880 by 460 cm. Although, the painting should be called a fresco with a small reservation: after all, the artist did not work on wet plaster, but on dry one. This little trick allowed him to edit the painting several times. And taking into account the fact that “The Last Supper” was finally ready only in 1498, this was a technical necessity.
Already during the artist’s lifetime, “The Last Meal of Jesus Christ” was considered his best work. According to scripture, it was during dinner that Jesus told the apostles about imminent betrayal. Da Vinci wanted to depict what was happening solely from a human point of view. And he looked for the emotions that the apostles experienced among ordinary people. By the way, it is believed that this is precisely why there are no halos over the heroes. To depict his reaction to the Teacher’s words, he wandered around the city for hours, started conversations with strangers, made them laugh, upset them and observed the changes in their faces.
"Last Supper" in the refectory
Work on the fresco was almost completed; the last unpainted characters remained Jesus and Judas. It is believed that in these heroes the artist embodied the concepts of good and evil, and for a long time could not find models suitable for such absolute images. But one day da Vinci saw a young singer in the church choir. The young man made an indelible impression on the artist, and it was he who became the prototype of Jesus.
Judas remained the last unwritten character. In search of a model, the artist wandered for a long time through seedy places. A truly degraded man “had to” become Judas. And only 3 years later such a person was found - in a state of alcoholic intoxication, in a ditch, completely desolate and dirty. The artist ordered the drunkard to be brought to the workshop, where Judas was copied from the man. When the drunkard came to his senses, he went up to the fresco and said that he had seen the paintings. Da Vinci asked in bewilderment when this was... And the man replied that 3 years ago, when he was singing in a church choir, a certain artist approached him with a request to copy Christ from him. Thus, according to the assumptions of some historians, Jesus and Judas were based on the same person at different periods of his life.
Sketches of the Last Supper
While working, the artist was often hurried by the abbot of the monastery, he kept insisting that the picture should be painted, and not stand in front of it in thought. Then da Vinci threatened that if the abbot did not stop interfering, he would certainly write off Judas from him.
The most discussed figure in the fresco is the disciple located at the right hand of Christ. Presumably, the artist depicted Mary Magdalene. It is even believed that she was the wife of Jesus, and this is what da Vinci hinted at by positioning her in such a way that the opposite bodies of Jesus and Mary formed the letter “M” - “Matrimonio”, which translates as “marriage”. However, this assumption is disputed by other historians, who believe that the painting does not depict the letter “M” at all, but “V” - the artist’s signature. The first version is also supported by the fact that Mary Magdalene washed Jesus’ feet and dried them with her hair, and according to tradition, only a legal wife could do this.
Jesus on the Last Supper fresco
There is also an interesting legend that the apostles were arranged by the artist according to the signs of the zodiac. And if you believe this version, then Jesus was a Capricorn, and Mary Magdalene was a virgin.
An even more interesting fact is that during the bombing during World War II, almost the entire church building was destroyed, except for the wall with the fresco. The people themselves, in general, took little care of the Renaissance masterpiece, and treated it far from mercifully. For example, after the flood of 1500, which caused serious damage to the painting, it was never restored. In 1566 in the wall "Last Supper" a door was made that “crippled” the heroes of the fresco. And at the end of the 17th century, the refectory was converted into a stable.
Jesus and Mary Magdalene
Historians, by the way, disagree about the food depicted in the fresco. For example, the question of what kind of fish is depicted on the table - herring or eel - is still open. A number of researchers believe that this ambiguity was originally intended by da Vicney. The question is in some ways purely linguistic: in Italian “eel” is pronounced “aringa”, and if you double the “r”, you get a completely different meaning - “arringa” (instruction). At the same time, in Northern Italy, “herring” is pronounced “renga,” and in translation it also means “one who denies religion,” and da Vinci himself was one of those. By the way, near Judas there is an overturned salt shaker, which has been considered a bad omen since ancient times, and the table and dishes depicted in the picture are an exact copy those that were in the church at the time the picture was created.
