The Last Supper’s
troubled history began in 1494, when Leonardo
was under the employment of the Sforza family. Before starting on the painting,
he was summoned in 1484 by the family’s patriarch, Ludovico Sforza, to create an
equestrian monument for his family; “This bronze horse was the larger than life
equestrian monument by which Lodovico hoped to celebrate the exploits of his
late father, Francesco Sforza” (King, Leonardo
and the Last Supper, 5). According to Valentino
Cupiraggi, “…Leonardo presents himself as military engineer, exalting his
technical expertise and, only marginally, his artistic talent. In the same
letter Leonardo flatters Il Moro by promising to make an equestrian monument in
honor of his father Francesco Sforza, the first Duke of Milan.” (Cupiraggi). While
Leonardo attempted multiple times to create the Sforza Family Monument, he was unsuccessful in its completion since
the bronze needed to create the statue was always needed elsewhere; such as “In
1494, when Charles VIII invaded Italy, Il Moro decided to send the bronze
destined to Leonardo's equestrian statue to Ferrara, to be used for cannons”
(Cupiraggi). Unfortunately, while the equestrian statue was mostly left
unfinished due to a lack of media, Leonardo’s habits of leaving projects
unfinished (such as Adoration of the Magi)
was also a significant factor in the incomplete status of the commission;
Leonardo also had a habit of taking on more projects than he could handle. Meanwhile, Ludovico desired a larger monument
for his family; one that would eternally immortalize his legacy and serve as a
family mausoleum. To make his ambition a reality, he commissioned the legendary
architect, Bramante, to renovate the Santa
Maria della Grazie cathedral to accommodate the Sforzas’ massive mausoleum.
In
addition to commissioning the famed architect to build a monument for his
family in the Santa Maria della Grazie,
patriarch Ludovico Sforza commissioned Leonardo to create a fresco that served
as the mausoleum’s centerpiece. However, according to page 47 of Ross King’s
Leonardo and the Last Supper, the Dominicans (and to an extent, Sforza)
considered Leonardo to be an odd person for the job; primarily because Leonardo
was inexperienced in creating a fresco painting. King then states on the next
page, “patrons commissioning frescoes during Leonardo’s time in Florence in the
1470s and early 1480s turned to painters such as Sandro Botticelli and Domenico
Ghirlandaio.” (King, 48) Leonardo was simply the wrong artist for the job,
which was a fact that would become prevalent when the painting entered
production. He had no experience in painting a fresco, almost exclusively
painting on canvas or wood panels, and he had a malignant habit of leaving his
works unfinished. Nonetheless, Leonardo was surprisingly chosen for the
commission and was given his assignment.
Sforza and the Dominicans desired a depiction
of The Last Supper from the New Testament; where Christ announced to his
disciples during their last Passover meal, “Truly I tell you, one of you will
betray me” (Matthew 21:26). Coincidentally, “Leonardo had been developing his
ideas for his Last Supper for some fifteen years; in one of his sketches for
the Adoration of the Magi there
appears a group of servants in animated discussion at a table, and nearby is a
figure of Christ. (Wallace, The World of
Leonardo, 80).” Since previous depictions of the scene were murals of a
massive scale, Ludovico desired the same result from Leonardo, much to the
dismay of the latter (King, 50). The artist immediately began pre-production on
the work by studying the gospels in a bible provided to him, notably the
gospels of Matthew and John; and by sketching his concepts in his famed
notebooks. One such example of these sketches can be viewed on page 86 on
Wallace’s The World of Leonardo, in
which one is shown a drawing of Jesus’s apostles. As shown in the sketch, each
apostle is easily identified and corresponds to a figure in the final product.
Other sketches have also been discovered in his notebooks that were likely used
to determine the appearance and placement of the apostles. “In his notes for
the painting, Leonardo enumerated several gestures he thought suitable—some he
retained, others were dropped.” (Wallace, 81) By comparing the sketch to
Leonardo’s final fresco, one can conclude the artist had initially planned a
different arrangement of the painting’s figures. One notable change from the preliminary plan
is a figure lying face down on the table, which is notably absent in the
finished product. Compared to the initial composition in the sketches, Leonardo
seemingly changed the perspective of the table as well. After meticulous
amounts of preproduction through the creation of sketches in his notebook,
Leonardo finalized his approach to the painting. However, he required the use
of models as a reference for the work. To alleviate this dilemma, he carefully
searched for people across Milan to portray the apostles and the Lord. In the
final work, all figures aside from Christ were based on people around Milan;
however, Christ remained an abstract.
For the faces of Christ’s
apostles, Leonardo meticulously recruited people around the city of Milan.
However, for the face and hands of Christ, he considered two men to fit the
role; “Count Giovanni, who belongs to the household of the Cardinal of Mortaro”
and “Alessandro Carrissimo of Parma” (Wallace, 81). Unfortunately, his search
for an appropriate Judas Iscariot was a difficult one; he spent an excessive
amount of time searching for the right criminal, which evoked anger and
accusations of laziness from the prior of the Santa Maria della Grazie. In response, Leonardo humorously stated
“he was… having difficulty finding a Judas, but if pressed, he would use the
head of the prior, which would do very nicely.” (Wallace, 81) Upon finding the
perfect cast for his painting, he arranged each one around a table in the
refectory with various props scattered upon it. Many of the props used in the
composition were symbols alluding to the story from the New Testament, such as
the salt cellar overturned by Judas; incriminating the shadowed apostle as
Christ’s betrayer. Once the scene was finalized, Leonardo ascended the
scaffolding and prepared himself to create his most ambitious and largest work
at the time and in the entirety of his career. It would prove to be a challenge
even to Leonardo himself, as the traditional method of fresco painting was
“ill-suited to his manner of working” (King, 103)
Unlike true frescos (or buon
frescos) that are painted on wet plaster, Leonardo surprisingly decided to
paint on a panel of dry plaster; a method known as “al secco”. King states
Leonardo used this method for two reasons, the first being his lack of
experience in fresco painting. His second reason was due to the limited color
range he was forced to use if he had painted using the buon method. A true
fresco’s color palette traditionally utilized muted hues; “many of the
brightest blues and greens---ultramarine, azurite, malachite----could be added
of if they were mixed with binders and applied to the plaster after it dried.”
(King, 49) The quote could imply he wished to take more time and eliminate any
worry about the plaster drying, so he could paint continuously and add the
extravagant amount of detail he was known for. Adding to the benefits of using
the al secco method, Leonardo had a larger margin for error unlike the
traditional method; a buon fresco painter has a miniscule margin and must work
quickly before the plaster permanently affixes to the wall. However, while the
painter must work quickly to achieve a desired result, the final product is
durable and lasts longer; the pigment also does not require a binder since the
plaster acts as such during a process such as carbonatation. Leonardo’s media
lacked the binder necessary to affix the pigment to the wall, which caused the
painting to become terribly fragile. The paint Leonardo used was a combination
of oil and tempera, which contained a liquid binder. He used the oil paint to
achieve a higher degree of detail and luminosity in the work, and Leonardo
could create a wider range of hues and value in the composition. If he wanted
to make any changes, he could do so more easily and “make as many corrections
as he desired” (King, 105). In addition, the oil-based pigment would not dull
as it dried unlike tempera; therefore, the work would retain its vivid hues and
luminous effects. Despite Leonardo
breaking the other rules of fresco painting, there was one he did follow;
painting from the highest point of the work to the lowest. Before starting with
the main portion of the fresco, Leonardo decided to work on the three lunettes
above the painting, which represented the members of the Sforza family. Fresco
artists usually paint from top to bottom as a precautionary measure, to prevent
the media from dripping and ruining other portions of the work.
Robert
Wallace states in The World of Leonardo, “As it originally appeared, the Last
Supper must have been incomparably beautiful—Leonardo worked not in fresco but
in tempera, employing all the rich color effects the technique allows.”
(Wallace, 83) Unfortunately, the medium used was not enough to permanently
adhere the paint to the dry plaster, and it caused Leonardo’s largest work to
become one of his largest blunders. Leonardo could have used the buon fresco
method and achieved a similar result as evidenced by one of his later (and
lost) works, The Battle of Anghiari.
He would have also gained the added benefit of durability rather than rapid
deterioration; mitigating the later necessity of restoration. Within moments of
completion in 1498, The Last Supper began
to rapidly deteriorate because of his method of production, along with several
environmental factors. Small flakes of pigment began to detach from the wall
and delicately fall to the refectory floor; a tragedy that would continue for
centuries afterward.
While visiting the refectory in 1517,
Antonio de Beatis commented on the picture, stating “it has begun to perish
either through dampness of the wall of through some other mischance.” (David
Alan Brown, 20) Further compounding the problem, the painting quickly gathered
dust and was created in a humid location where significant amounts of moisture
gathered. The dust and moisture would
cause more portions of the fresco to detach. By the latter half of the
sixteenth century, painter Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo stated “the painting is all
ruined” upon closer inspection of the work. Giorgio Vasari stated a similar
opinion in 1556, noting “there is nothing visible except a muddle of blots”
(Wallace, 83). According to David Alan Brown’s The Last Supper: The Restoration, “Francesco Scanelli, after
carefully examining the mural, could only make out a few traces of the
figures.” In 1652, soon after Scanelli analyzed the painting, the doorway had
been enlarged; eliminating Christ’s feet from the work. In 1800 during the French
occupation of Milan, the painting “suffered further damage when the refectory
was used for storage or as a stable or barracks”. Brown also states the damage
was compounded further due to “the modern problem of air pollution.” The
painting was almost lost completely in 1943, during the bombing of Milan. Thankfully
due to sandbagging and various measures to protect the work, it remains mostly
intact; unfortunately, it suffered substantial damages. The painting’s rapidly
deteriorating state was a sign of a devastating fact; The Last Supper was in desperate need of repair.
According to Wallace, “through the
centuries, since it first began to deteriorate, the wreckage of Leonardo’s
masterpiece has consistently presented the most difficult problem that experts
in restoration have ever faced. The Last
Supper has been retouched, restored and given up for lost countless times”.
Massive amounts of color and detail from Leonardo’s initial work had unfortunately
been lost, such as a significant portion of Christ’s sash and James the Greater;
the latter was nothing more than a head and hands. Surprisingly, the apostles
Bartholomew and Andrew faced the least amount of damage, still retaining a
significant amount of Leonardo’s original detail. Since the fresco faced a
significant amount of damage, it would have been a challenge to use the
original as a reference for restorations. Thankfully, Giovanni Pietro da Birago
managed to alleviate the situation in 1500 with his simplified engraving of
Leonardo’s work. Other references used included two copies of the painting, one
by Andrea Solari in 1520, and another by Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli. Throughout
the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the painting faced many
ill-fated attempts at restoration. Brown considers the attempts as “a dramatic
tale of restorer’s attempts to save it from ruin”. According to Pinin Brambilla
Barcilon, whom would lead her own attempt at restoration in 1977, “the various
attempts to save the Last Supper often
layered damage upon damage by superimposing one incompatible material on
another.” The materials used in the restorations would cause further harm to
the work, causing the new pigment and amounts of Leonardo’s original to detach
from the refectory wall. These “incompatible materials” ranged from cleaning
agents such as “corrosive detergents used to clean the surface to varnishes and
oils used to revive the dulled surface” (Barcilon, 369). Adhesives such as
“refined shellac in alcohol” were used to reattach the fallen pigments to the
wall and stabilize the work from further deterioration. As mentioned
previously; to further stabilize the work and mitigate further damage, Pinin
Brambilla Barcilon would lead an infamous restoration attempt in 1977. The
purpose of her ambitious project was to restore as much of Leonardo’s work as
possible, along with filling in the missing pieces using watercolor. While she
pursued in her goal of bringing the work to its former glory, she came across
various challenges such as cleaning the surface multiple times, sometimes
cleaning deep into the painting’s multiple layers. She would state that after
cleaning one day, the solvents she used would expose more grime from below for
the next day of cleaning. Unfortunately,
while her restoration work was successful in its goal, it was also met with a
significant amount of controversy. Many art critics considered Brambilla’s work
on the painting to be unnecessary and destructive, since she chipped away
elements of previous restoration attempts and portions of Leonardo’s original.
James Beck, an Art History Professor at Columbia University in New York,
considered the restoration to be “eighty percent of Brambilla’s work and a mere
twenty percent of Leonardo’s”. He considered the job as a “repainting of a work
that doesn’t have an echo of a past”. History Professor Martin Kemp questioned
Brambilla’s decision to use watercolor to fill in the gaps of Leonardo’s lost
work. After the restoration work was completed, other measures were taken to
protect the masterpiece. The amount of people allowed in the refectory was
severely limited to a small group (25-30 people), and ventilation units were
installed to mitigate the humidity of the room. Thanks to the efforts of Brambillon
and her team, The Last Supper stands
beautifully as it overlooks Santa Maria della Grazie’s refectory.
As it currently stands, Leonardo’s
ambitious masterpiece is a mural of a monumental scale. Utilizing the technique
of perspective, Leonardo manages to make the fresco appear as an extension of
the refectory and gives the illusion of Christ and his apostles sitting in an
alcove above the room. Christ’s abstract head at the center of the painting
serves as a vanishing point; which is fitting, considering he is the main
subject of the work. The twelve apostles surround Christ on both sides; all
placed into groups of three throughout the painting. Using the studies from
Leonardo’s notebooks, the placement of the apostles is as follows from left to
right: Bartholomew, James the lesser (son of Alphaeus), Andrew, Judas, Peter,
John, Thomas, James the Greater, Phillip, Matthew, Jude, and Simon. Each apostle
is portrayed with a different reaction towards Christ’s revelation of his
betrayal, ranging from John swooning behind him to Thomas’s expression of
anger. Similar to many previous (and later) portrayals of The Last Supper,
Judas Iscariot is shrouded in darkness and clutching a bag of silver. The bag
of silver is one of two symbols incriminating him as Christ’s betrayer; the
other being the bread he reaches for at the same time as his mentor, which is a
subtle allusion to Matthew 26:23, “…He that dippeth his hand with me in the
dish, the same shall betray me.” Leonardo
applied three techniques in conjunction with perspective when creating the
painting; sfumato for a hazy and softened effect in the composition,
chiaroscuro to create the illusion of light coming in through the windows, and
the effortless grace known as sprezzatura. While the changes to the environment
have stabilized the condition of the mural, it is imperative for its survival
that it must be moved to a new location; preferably a place that is
non-secular. The Last Supper would
seem inappropriate if placed in a secular location, as the main theme involves
the final moments in the life of Christ. The painting would be transferred
using a process similar to transferring an oil painting from a wood panel to a
canvas; the layers of paint would be sandwiched between layers of paper during
transport and placed on a new panel upon arrival.
Bibliography
Barcilon, Pinin
Brambilla. Leonardo: The Last Supper.
University of Chicago Press, 2001. (Nelson)
Brown, David Alan. Leonardo's
Last Supper: The Restoration. Washington DC: National Gallery of Art,
1983. (Nelson)
Clark, Kenneth. Leonardo
Da Vinci: An Account of His Development as an Artist. Penguin Books, 1971.
Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli
(Giampietrino). The Last Supper (after Leonardo). 1520, London,
England.
Goldscheider,
Ludwig. Leonardo Da Vinci: Life and Work, Paintings and Drawings.
Seventh ed., Phaidon Press, 1959.
King, Ross. Leonardo
and the Last Supper. Walker and Company, 2012.
Leonardo. The
Last Supper. Milan, 1494-1497, Santa Maria della Grazie Refectory.
Leonardo. The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci. Pg.
232
“Our History.” Cathedral
of St. Joseph, cathedralsj.org/our-history.
“The Perpetual
Restoration of Leonardo's 'Last Supper' – Part 1: The Law of Diminishing
Returns.” Edited by Michael Daley, Artwatch, 14 Oct. 2014,
artwatch.org.uk/the-perpetual-restoration-of-leonardos-last-supper-part-1-the-law-of-diminishing-returns/.
Pietro, Marani C. Leonardo's Last Supper (Translated by
Margaret Kunzle). Edizioni Electa, 1986. (Nelson)
Richter, Irma. Selections
from the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Oxford University Press.
Solari, Andrea. The
Last Supper (after Leonardo). Belgium, 1520, Leonardo da Vinci Museum.
Vasari, Giorgio.
“Leonardo da Vinci.” The Lives of the
Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. 1550.
Wallace, Robert. The
World of Leonardo, 1452-1519. Time Incorporated, 1966.
