The Last Supper
Jesus has just said that one of the disciples will betray him. Leonardo painted on dry plaster in a monastery in Milan, and the paint began to flake even in his lifetime.
All the perspective lines in the room meet at Jesus’s head – the painting’s central vanishing point.
Leonardo painted The Last Supper on the wall of the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. It was commissioned by Duke Ludovico Sforza, for whom Leonardo worked. The work took roughly from 1495 to 1498. The painting is about nine metres wide and four and a half metres high and faces the monks as they sit at their tables.
The subject is the moment when Jesus says that one of the disciples will betray him. The disciples react violently. They sit in four groups of three, two groups on either side of Jesus, who sits alone in the middle. Judas sits in the same group as Peter and John. He leans back into the shadow and holds a purse, probably with the silver coins he received for the betrayal. Peter holds a knife and leans towards John, who seems to have swooned with grief. Hands and faces express astonishment, anger and doubt.
Jesus sits in a triangular form with his arms outstretched. Behind him is a window, and the light from it forms a kind of halo without a halo being painted. All the lines of the room converge on his head, so that the eye is constantly drawn there. The light falls from the left, as if it came from the refectory’s real windows.
Leonardo chose not to paint in true fresco, which requires working quickly on wet plaster. Instead he painted with tempera and oil on a dry wall. This allowed him to work slowly and change his mind, but the paint adhered poorly. Only a few years after the painting was finished it began to flake. Leonardo made many preparatory sketches for the heads, and some of them survive in the British Royal Collection.
The painting has had a difficult fate. In 1652 a door was cut into the wall, and Jesus’s feet were lost. Over the years it has suffered from damp, failed restorations and careless use of the room. In August 1943 the monastery was bombed and the refectory was partly destroyed. The wall with The Last Supper survived, protected by sandbags and scaffolding.
Between 1978 and 1999 a very extensive restoration was carried out. It was led by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon. Later overpainting was removed and what remained of Leonardo’s paint was uncovered. The restoration was controversial, since a large part of the original turned out to be lost. Today visitors are admitted in small groups for a limited time to protect the painting.
The Last Supper is among the most copied and parodied images in the world. It has inspired everyone from other painters to photographers, film-makers and novelists. Since 1980 the monastery and the painting have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Opposite, on the other end wall of the refectory, is a fresco of the Crucifixion painted by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano in 1495.