Visual Analysis
Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, 1495-98, oil, tempera, fresco, 15′ 1″ x 29′ 0″, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. [https://smarthistory.org/leonardo-last-supper/].
Formal Analysis
From the physical appearance of the scene, it is evident that Leonardo was expressing the desire to conquer the minds of the apostles to show who was betraying their Master. Leonardo expresses an individual’s face with expressions of love, fear, resentment, and grief, thus creating confusion of failure to understand Christ’s meaning. However, on one particular individual, Leonardo expresses less astonishment with absolute hatred and treachery (Georgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, 1568; translated by George Bull).
The artist (Leonardo da Vinci) utilizes tempera and oil on gesso, pitch, and mastic to creatively paint a Christian art that illustrates the scene from the last days of Jesus Christ before the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John 13:21. Therefore, through the mural painting style, the artwork is a masterpiece of the Italian High Renaissance. With the High Renaissance painting technique, the artist creates a confusion scene where everyone is trying to inquire about something.
From the general outlook, it is evident that the painting is a landscape painting, drawn to a scale of an individual taking some landscape photography. From the landscape perspective, thirteen individuals are seen with one person in the middle of six halves, each looking confident and resting six-halves looking confused and troubled. From the same perspective, it can be seen that the thirteen individuals (Jesus and his disciples) were seated surrounding a table, and the table was covered with a table cloth and dishes on top of the table suggesting the individuals where discussion over some lunch or supper. The individuals’ separation into groups of three and the restlessness created on the individuals reveals that something was wrong, and everyone is trying to find out, except the person who asked the question, who looks confident and calm. Under the table, stools-like structures are seen, suggesting that these individuals were at a point, all seated and calm, enjoying their dishes that lay on the table.
A view of the place where these individuals (Jesus and the disciples) were, one might think that place was closed in the far end with an open-end form the viewers’ side. However, the walls have a dark-brown painting with pillar-like structures suggesting that there were other rooms on both sides of the painting. Further, a critical look at the far end of the painting shows a door-like structure, concluding that the viewer end was probably closed with an open door on the other side. The dark shading on both sides of the wall reveals the artistic intension of concentrating the viewer on what is happening on the viewers’ first look.
Within the context of the painting, there are thirteen distinctive prominent figures with two unique characters‘ calm and confident and restless and confused. The two distinctive characters are Jesus Christ, who appears to be calm and confident while the rest are his disciples who seem to be restless and confused. Jesus Christ is at the middle of the disciples six on each side, and their identity from left to right of the painting depiction of four groups of three each are: group 1 comprises of Bartholomew, James the Less and Andrew, group 2 comprise of Judas Iscariot, Peter, and John, group 3 consists of Thomas, James, and Philip, while group 4 include Jude Thaddeus, Matthew, and Simon the Zealot. This is according to the Last Supper Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci.
In conclusion, the painting captures twelve disciples in querying, gesticulating, anger, and disbelief, contrary to the expressions on Christ who are in the dynamic center of the composition. The head of Jesus Christ, according to the painting, represents the vanishing point for all perspective lines- an event that makes The Last Supper the epitome of Renaissance single-point linear perspective. Judas, the center of focus, is put together to sit with everyone despite a marked man. The artist portrays him as grabbing a small bag that symbolizes the 30 pieces of silver and knocking over the salt pot, which are illustrations of betrayal. The artist employs ordinary models, a combination of sign language and oratorical gesture as a communication technique in the painting. Finally, the painting also has some Holy Trinity illusion as the disciples are grouped in three while Jesus is left to represents the triangular shape.
Historical Analysis
Leonardo da Vinci painted the Last Supper during the High Renaissance period (1490-1530). The High Renaissance period is an Italian Painting style that represents the epicenter of Renaissance art summit culminated by quattrocento of exploratory activities. The High Renaissance period is characterized by a notch higher than all the harmony and balance qualities. Despite the necessity and importance of movement in Renaissance art painting, the High Renaissance paintings are always dignified and calm and usually provide a point of focus to the viewers’ eyes. The paintings and pictures during the High Renaissance satisfy the definition of beauty offered by Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) in the treatise of Della Pittura by being balanced and self-contained. Before the High Renaissance period, there were Pre-Renaissance period and the Early Renaissance period. Further, the Della Pittura treatise elaborates that a beautiful painting or picture is “such a complete harmony of parts to which nothing can be added or taken away without destroying the whole.” Therefore, the High Renaissance period’s artwork is neither intense nor self-conscious to the point at which the Early Renaissance was. Additionally, the High Renaissance is not contrived as a Mannerist painting; rather, it is grouped in the same category as High Classical Greek Sculptures of the 5th Century, which were calm and monumental.
The High Renaissance period had great painters like the greatest exponents such as the Florentine geniuses Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, inclusive of Urbino master Raffaello Santi, and the Venetian colorist Tiziano Vecellio. Other examples of High Renaissance greatest painters include the Florence Andrea del Sarto and Fra Bartolommeo, the Venice trio Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, and Sebastiano del Piombo. Further, the High Renaissance painting style tales are associated with the Renaissance in Rome, where the ambitious Popes financed a variety of public art projects.
Contextual Analysis
During the 14th century, when the Black Death plague wiped out an estimate of 60 percent of the European population, there was a need to educate the general public on societal disorders and history cause change. Therefore, the Renaissance means rebirth came into light with new wealth, religious favors, intellectual philosophy, and extreme arts passion. Italy specifically was deeply rooted in religious societies, with the Catholic Church based in Rome emerging as the strongest full of richness, powerful and the center of the European world. Therefore, the whole of Italy was strongly devoted to Catholicism, thus impacting on the artwork emerging during the High Renaissance period. For instance, Leonardo da Vinci’s artwork of The Last Supper that depicts Christ at the Last Supper was highly influenced by Italy’s strong devotion to Catholicism (“Muscato”). The sense of total balance and self-containment, which is presented evidently in The Last Supper, provides the viewers with an elaborative attribute of how religion was part of the society and cultural norms.
Over the Renaissance, especially the High Renaissance period, artistic production was viewed in terms of religious worthiness in their culmination and classical art creation that shows a harmonious integration of religious artworks. All the artists under the High Renaissance were expected to have a good understanding of artistic development and production. The appropriate recognition of artistic development and production during the High Renaissance is the beauty entrainment “creation when all of the parts and details of the work support the whole cohesive piece.” Therefore, the High Renaissance artists were able to sacrifice the technical aspects, thus creating more beautiful and harmonious artwork.
Humanism also played roles in the development of High Renaissance artworks. The Humanist scholars had the belief that a body of learning called Studia Humanitatis that was based on literacy masterpiece of cultural rebirth, moral philosophy, history, rhetoric, and grammar contributed to the Bible development and early Christian Thinkers works. Despite Italy being free from France and Spain, the Humanism did not stop, thus transforming every aspect of intellectual and cultural life through literature and painting. In the Humanism aspect, The Last Supper reconstructs under both biblical literature and painting. Christ says to his Apostles, “One of you will betray me,” and the apostles react according to their personalities. Leonardo depicts every apostle with their literature personalities, simultaneously illustrating Christ’s blessing the bread and dividing it to the apostles. Leonardo in his depiction to Christ tries to suggest that Christ was saying “Take, eat; this is my body” while similarly breaking the bread “Drink from it all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26) when sharing the drink with the apostles. Moreover, these words are the founding words in the sacrament of the Eucharist partaking in the Catholic church.
During the Humanism period, there was a need to learn Greek and Latin. However, there was rivalry when the humanists mastered the Greek language due to their eagerness to discover and sharing ancient text. To bring on the unity as advocated by Catholicism, The Last Supper brought in a balanced composition that is anchored on an equilateral triangle depicting Christ’s body. The ideal geometric forms entail the renaissance interest in Neo-Platonism- a humanistic revival that reconciles Greek philosophy with Christian theology aspects. The Last Supper arranges the equilateral triangle by grouping the apostles into four groups of three and also using three windows in the art. In Catholic art, number three is used about the Holy Trinity.
Work Cited
Zucker, Steven, and Beth Harris. Leonardo, Last Supper. 9 Aug. 2015, smarthistory.org/leonardo-last-supper/.
Zucker, Steven, and Beth Harris, directors. The Last Supper, Smarthistory, 10 Apr. 2013, youtu.be/iV6_wTrkd70.
Visual-arts-cork. “The Last Supper (1495-8).” Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci: Meaning, Interpretation, 2020, www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-paintings/last-supper-leonardo-davinci.htm.
Harris, Beth, and Steven Zucker. The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci (Article). 2015, www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial-americas/renaissance-art-europe-ap/a/leonardo-last-supper.
Muscato, Christopher. Religious & Philosophical Influences on High Renaissance Art Chapter 12 / Lesson 3 Transcript. 23 Apr. 2015, study.com/academy/lesson/religious-philosophical-influences-on-high-renaissance-art.html.