My mother has always loved Italy and Italian art, especially Renaissance art. This is a Pagan blog and I usually don’t include non-Pagan elements, but I really love Leonardo Da Vinci and his incredible works. My mother and I went to a Da Vinci art exhibit and we loved it! The story about the painting and restoration of this piece is incredibly interesting. I write this post out of love for my mother and the awesome time that we had together at that exhibit.
“The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most famous paintings in history but there is still a lot of mystery surrounding it. The Last Supper is a mural painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1495–1498. The painting represents the scene of the Last Supper of Jesus with the Twelve Apostles, as it is told in the Gospel of John – specifically the moment after Jesus announces that one of his apostles will betray him. It is one of the Western world’s most recognizable paintings and among Leonardo’s most celebrated works.
Housed in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy, The Last Supper is his largest work, aside from the Sala delle Asse. The work was commissioned as part of a plan of renovations to the church and its convent buildings by Leonardo’s patron Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. Frescos were painted on wet plaster. But da Vinci rejected this traditional technique for several reasons. First off, he wanted to achieve a grander luminosity than the fresco method allowed for. But the bigger problem with frescos—as da Vinci saw it—was that they demanded the painter rush to finish his work before the plaster dried.
In order to permit his inconsistent painting schedule and frequent revisions, it is painted with materials that allowed for regular alterations: tempera on gesso, pitch, and mastic. He added an undercoat of white lead to enhance the brightness of the oil and tempera that was applied on top. At the time, fresco painting was the most popular method of painting. Water based pigments were painted on freshly applied plaster, usually on walls or surfaces. This new method was very different and due to the methods used, a variety of environmental factors, and intentional damage, little of the original painting remains today despite numerous restoration attempts, the last being completed in 1999.
The Last Supper is much larger than most people realize. Countless reproductions have been made in all sizes, but the original is about 15 feet by 29 feet and covers an end wall of the dining hall at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. The main church building was being completed (in 1498). Leonardo’s patron, Ludovico Sforza, planned that the church should be remodeled as a family mausoleum, but these plans were not fully carried out, and a smaller mortuary chapel was constructed, adjacent to the cloister. The painting was commissioned by Sforza to decorate the wall of the 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; these figures have deteriorated in much the same way as has The Last Supper.
Leonardo worked on The Last Supper from about 1495 to 1498, but did not work continuously. The beginning date is not certain, as the archives of the convent for the period have been destroyed. Leonardo used the likenesses of people in and around Milan as inspiration for the painting’s figures. da Vinci searched the jails of Milan for the perfect looking scoundrel for the face of the traitorous Judas. a prior from the monastery complained to Leonardo about its delay, enraging him. The convent’s prior complained to Sforza of Leonardo’s “laziness” as he wandered the streets to find a criminal to base Judas on. Leonardo responded that if he could find no one else, the prior would make a suitable model. A document dated 1497 indicates that the painting was nearly
In The Templar Revelation, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince propose that the figure to the left of Jesus is not John, but Mary Magdalene, and that The Last Supper is key evidence in a cover-up of the true identity of Christ by the Roman Catholic Church. According to Ross King, an expert on Italian art, Mary Magdalene’s appearance at the last supper would not have been controversial and Leonardo would have had no motive to disguise her as one of the other disciples, since she was widely venerated in her role as the “Apostle to the Apostles” and was the patron of the Dominican Order, for whom The Last Supper was painted.
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. The tablecloth is white with blue stripes, which are colors commonly associated with the Jewish people. This is the painting’s only overt reference to the ethnicity of Jesus and his disciples.
Although the painting itself was beloved, da Vinci’s tempera-on-stone experiment was a failure. Because Sforza had ordered the church to be rebuilt hastily, the masons filled the walls with moisture-retaining rubble. The painting was done on a thin exterior wall, so the effects of humidity were felt keenly, and the paint failed to properly adhere to it. Because of the method used, soon after the painting was completed on 9 February 1498 it began to deteriorate. In 1499, Louis XII contemplated removing the painting from the wall and taking it to France.
As early as 1517, the painting was starting to flake, and in 1532 Gerolamo Cardano described it as “blurred and colorless compared with what I remember of it when I saw it as a boy”. By 1556 – fewer than sixty years after it was finished – Giorgio Vasari described the painting as reduced to a “muddle of blots” so deteriorated that the figures were unrecognizable. By the second half of the 16th century, Gian Paolo Lomazzo stated that “the painting is all ruined”. In 1652, a doorway was cut through the (then unrecognisable) painting, and later bricked up; this can still be seen as the irregular arch-shaped structure near the center base of the painting. It is believed, through early copies, that Jesus’ feet were in a position symbolizing the forthcoming crucifixion. In 1768, a curtain was hung over the painting intended for its protection; the curtain instead trapped moisture on the surface, and whenever it was pulled back, it scratched the flaking paint.
Early restoration attempts only made it worse. A first restoration was attempted in 1726 by 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 1770 by an otherwise unknown artist named 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 1796, French revolutionary anti-clerical troops used the refectory as an armory and stable; they threw stones at the painting and climbed ladders to scratch out the Apostles’ eyes
In 1821, 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 1901 to 1908, Luigi Cavenaghi first completed a careful study of the structure of the painting, then began cleaning it. In 1924, Oreste Silvestri did further cleaning, and stabilised some parts with stucco.
During World War II, on 15 August 1943, the refectory was struck by Allied bombing; protective sandbagging prevented the painting from being struck by bomb splinters, but it may have been damaged by the vibration. Between 1946 and 1954, Mauro Pellicioli undertook a clean-and-stabilise restoration, which Brera director Fernanda Wittgens it was involved in. Pellicioli reattached paint to the wall using a clear shellac, making it relatively darker and more colorful, and removed some of the overpainting. However, as of 1972, the repainting done in various restorations had made the heads of saints Peter, Andrew, and James differ significantly from the original design.
The painting’s appearance by the late 1970s had badly deteriorated. From 1978 to 1999, Pinin Brambilla Barcilon guided a major restoration project to stabilize the painting and reverse the damage caused by dirt and pollution. The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century restoration attempts were also reversed. 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 21 years and, on 28 May 1999, the painting was returned to display. Though The Last Supper is one of Italy’s must-see sites, the convent in which it is located was not built for big crowds. Only 20 to 25 people are allowed in at a time. Intending visitors were required to book ahead and could only stay for 15 minutes. . It is recommended visitors book tickets to see The Last Supper at least two months in advance. And be sure to dress conservatively, or you may be turned away from the convent. If you are interested in the convent or reserving, click here for their official site.
Author Mary Shelley describes her impression of the painting in her travel narrative, Rambles in Germany and Italy, published 1844:
First we visited the fading inimitable fresco of Leonardo da Vinci. How vain are copies! not in one, nor in any print, did i ever see the slightest approach to the expression in our Savior’s face, such as it is in the original. 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.
— Mary Shelley, Travel Writing (1996), pp. 131–132
Vatican researcher Sabrina Sforza Galitzia translated the painting’s “mathematical and astrological” signs into a message from da Vinci about the end of the world. The painting contains several possible numerical references, including to the number three. The Apostles are seated in groups of three, there are three windows behind Jesus, and the shape of Jesus’ figure resembles a triangle. His hands are located at the golden ratio of half the height of the composition. The painting can also be interpreted using the Fibonacci series: one table, one central figure, two side walls, three windows and figures grouped in threes, five groups of figures, eight panels on the walls and eight table legs, and thirteen individual figures. She claims The Last Supper predicts an apocalyptic flood that will sweep the globe from March 21 to November 1, 4006.
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