The Last Supper (Leonardo)

The Last Supper (Italian: Il Cenacolo [il tʃeˈnaːkolo] or L'Ultima Cena [ˈlultima ˈtʃeːna]) is a mural painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1495–1498, housed in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. 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. Its handling of space, mastery of perspective, treatment of motion and complex display of human emotion has made it one of the Western world's most recognizable paintings and among Leonardo's most celebrated works. Some commentators consider it pivotal in inaugurating the transition into what is now termed the High Renaissance.

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. 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. 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 Leonardo's largest work, aside from the Sala delle Asse.

The Last Supper measures 460 cm × 880 cm (15 ft 1 in × 28 ft 10 in) and covers an end wall of the dining hall at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. The theme was a traditional one for refectories, although the room was not a refectory at the time that Leonardo painted it. The main church building was still under construction while Leonardo was composing the painting. Leonardo's patron, Ludovico Sforza, planned that the church should be remodeled as a family mausoleum. To this end, changes were made, perhaps to plans by Donato Bramante. 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 lunettes above the main painting, formed by the triple arched ceiling of the refectory, are painted with Sforza coats-of-arms. 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 he did not work continuously. The beginning date is not certain, as the archives of the convent for the period have been destroyed. A document dated 1497 indicates that the painting was nearly completed at that date. A prior from the monastery reportedly complained to Leonardo about its delay. Leonardo wrote to the head of the monastery, explaining he had been struggling to find the perfect villainous face for Judas, and that if he could not find a face corresponding with what he had in mind, he would use the features of the prior who had complained.

In 1557, Gian Paolo Lomazzo wrote that Leonardo's friend Bernardo Zenale advised him to leave Christ's face unfinished, arguing that "it would be impossible to imagine faces lovelier or gentler than those of James the Greater or James the Less." Leonardo apparently took the advice.

Leonardo, as a painter, favoured oil painting, a medium which allows the artist to work slowly and make changes with ease. Fresco painting does not facilitate either of these objectives. Leonardo also sought a greater luminosity and intensity of light and shade (chiaroscuro) than could be achieved with fresco, in which the water-soluble colours are painted onto wet plaster, laid freshly each day in sections. Rather than using the proven method of painting on walls, Leonardo painted The Last Supper in tempera, the medium generally used for panel painting. The painting is on a stone wall sealed with a double layer of gesso, pitch, and mastic. Then he added an undercoat of white lead to enhance the brightness of the tempera that was applied on top. This was a method that had been described previously by Cennino Cennini in the 14th century. However, Cennini described the technique as being more risky than fresco painting, and recommended the use of painting in a more superficial medium for the final touches only.

The Last Supper portrays the reaction given by each apostle when Jesus said one of them would betray him. All twelve apostles have different reactions to the news, with various degrees of anger and shock. The apostles were identified by their names, using an unsigned, mid-sixteenth-century fresco copy of Leonardo's Cenacolo. Before this, only Judas, Peter, John and Jesus had been positively identified. From left to right, according to the apostles' heads:

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 colours commonly associated with the Jewish people. This is the painting's only overt reference to the ethnicity of Jesus and his disciples. Most previous depictions excluded Judas by placing him alone on the opposite side of the table from the other eleven disciples and Jesus, or placing halos around all the disciples except Judas. Leonardo instead has Judas lean back into shadow. Jesus is predicting that his betrayer will take the bread at the same time he does to Thomas and James the Greater to his left, who react in horror as Jesus points with his left hand to a piece of bread before them. Distracted by the conversation between John and Peter, Judas reaches for a different piece of bread not noticing Jesus too stretching out with his right hand towards it (Matthew 26: 23). The angles and lighting draw attention to Jesus, whose turned right cheek is located at the vanishing point for all perspective lines. In addition, the painting demonstrated Leonardo's masterful use of perspective as it "draws our attention to the face of Christ at the center of the composition, and Christ's face, through his down-turned gaze, directs our focus along the diagonal of his left arm to his hand and therefore, the bread."