This is due to a mixture of factors, including environmental, intentional damage and the paintings foundations. As many people know, the Last Supper was not painted on any old canvas or background, but actually a wall.
The wall of the Santa Maria delle Garzie dining hall in Milan. The painting was to be the centre piece of the mausoleum as commissioned by Prince Sforza. Unfortunately the painting was at risk from the beginning as Sfroza had ordered the church to be built too hastily, leading the walls to be filled with moisture-retaining rubble. Leonardo worked on the painting on a thin exterior wall, which meant the effects of humidity were felt keenly, and the paint failed to properly adhere to it.
This meant that even before the painting was completed in , it has already begun to deteriorate, and as early as it started to flake. At present, the management board allows just 1, people to visit the Last Supper each day. Ghirlandaio was Michelangelo's teacher. You can only see it for four hours am to pm on Mondays and Saturdays. As is now increasingly typical, Judas is isolated opposite from Christ and the apostles on a long horizontal table.
Typical of Ghirlandaio, the fresco is filled with animation, symbolism, and vivid detail. It almost looks like a terrace garden party.
Ghirlandaio used the shape of the room to add a sense of amplified space. There's a bit more elegance and grandeur, presaging the High Renaissance. The fancy embroidered table cloth looks like it was just ironed. Ghirlandaio also added background scenes which shift the vanishing point, creating the illusion that the viewer is looking up.
Like Castagno, Ghirlandaio placed Jesus and his disciples, except Judas, behind the table so they are facing out. Address : Borgo Ognissanti 42, Florence. In this one, Ghirlandaio adds a cat, a symbol of deceit, behind Judas. Peter has a look of open dislike and looks ready to plunge his knife. The apostles appear to wonder, "Is it me? Legend holds that the cherries spell out a rhyme. Dominican nun Plautilla Nelli created a ground breaking addition to the Last Supper genre.
In , she embarked on her most ambitious project, a monumental The Last Supper painting featuring life size depictions of Jesus and the twelve apostles.
She was likely the first woman in the history of the world to paint this iconic scene. Nelli's large canvas is remarkable for its challenging composition, powerful brushstrokes, and adept treatment of anatomy at a time when women were banned from studying the scientific field. I n , Nelli's work was painstaking restored over four years. In , it was unveiled in public for the first time in years. The work was installed in the Santa Maria Novella M useum , where it hangs alongside masterpieces by Masaccio, Brunelleschi, and Ghirlandaio.
Ah, now it's time for the world's most famous Last Supper. No painting is so familiar, save for the Mona Lisa. Previous artists had focused on the moment of identification of Judas. Leonardo instead focused on the moment before, when Jesus has just announced he will be betrayed and doubt is in the air.
In a swoosh of emotion, Leonardo captures each apostle's unique reaction to his declaration -- horror, astonishment, anger, anxiety, grief, shock, etc. Some art experts believe that James the Lesser, who is the second apostle from the left, is a Leonardo self portrait. The Last Supper is also renowned for its revolutionary use of single point perspective, which gives the 2D painting a 3D perspective.
Leonardo angled the walls within the picture so that the vanishing point converges on Christ, emphasizing his importance. The scale of The Last Supper is enormous -- 29 feet wide by 15 feet tall. Not only is The Last Supper famous, it's as renowned for its fragility as its power.
It has a tortured history and, sadly, it's in terrible condition. No one has seen the painting as it was meant to be experienced in five centuries. A mad-scientist experimenter with materials and techniques, Leonardo loved blending colors, playing with shading chiaroscuro and smoky space sfumato.
For this showpiece, rather than employing stable true fresco, he used oil and tempera paint over coats of gesso and white lead. By the time Leonardo finished in , the painting was already deteriorating. It was flaking off the wall 20 years later. There have been seven documented attempts to repair the Last Supper. In , the whole thing was largely repainted. At some point, a door was cut into the bottom of the painting.
In , The Last Supper was restored over the course of 21 years. You've got to be organized and reserve in advance to see this Leonardo masterpiece. It's kept in a special microclimate with restricted access.
Advance reservations are mandatory. Here's my guide to The Last Supper , with an analysis of the painting, practical information, and must know tips on how to see Leonardo's masterpiece. The Clos Luce was Leonardo's home in France, where he lived for four years before his death in The tapestry was designed by Renaissance master Raphael.
He attempted to faithfully reproduce Leonardo's The Last Supper. It even has the same dimensions. The tapestry has the same Leonardo-esque assembly of apostles at the table. It captures Leonardo's nuances and sfumato technique. The only difference is that the scene is framed with architectural accents. The tapestry is made of silk, with gold and silver threads and a crimson velvet border. The tapestry, which is protected by glass, was created in a Flemish workshop.
Despite some hypotheses, it's still not known exactly which artist created the work or even which factory it was woven in. The tapestry was fully restored in time for the celebration of the year anniversary of the death of Leonardo.
Address : Vatican City. Convitto della Calza was a 13th century hospital run by the Dames of Malta. They commissioned Franciabigio to paint this Last Supper in in the ancient refectory. Like most Last Suppers, it takes place at the very moment Jesus reveals a betrayal is forthcoming.
Jesus looks incredibly sad, and the apostles register confusion. The table is filled with extraordinary detail. The world's first art historian and fellow artist, Giorgio Vasari, reported that Franciabigio was keen on studies of perspective and anatomy.
The apostles are identified by a strip running above the heads. In , the painting was restored. Address : Piazza della Calza 6, Florence. While influenced by Leonardo, Raphael's work is characterized by clarity, precision, and luminescence. Then, due to humidity and flaking, the painting was considered totally ruined by the middle of the 16th century. In , the French came back — and this time, they represented the revolutionary French republic. The invading troops used the refectory as a base and the mural as a place to take out their anti-clerical feelings, hurling rocks at the painting and gouging out the Apostles' eyes.
That wasn't the only close call the painting had. Authorities made the baffling decision to house prisoners inside the building, the New York Times reported. In the 19th century, well-meaning individuals trying to restore the mural nearly broke it apart.
Perhaps the most dramatic incident occurred on August 15, , when Allied forces bombed the refectory. Atlas Obscura reported , a protective structure had been set up beforehand. While the rest of the church was largely reduced to debris, "The Last Supper" was saved.
As it turns out, da Vinci started the mural at a most inopportune time. In wartime, bronze would be collected and melted into gun metal. Da Vinci didn't just lose money because of the war.
The statue would have brought him the acclaim and artistic prestige he craved. In , da Vinci was 42 years old. At that point, the Renaissance man had been judged by some contemporaries to have wasted his potential. Leonardo was desperate to create what he called a 'work of fame' — something that would make him famous for posterity. He finally gained it with 'The Last Supper. Da Vinci was always on the lookout for interesting faces to depict. King said that one such face is reflected in the figure of James the Greater.
Leonardo, who loved music, sketched the musician as he played. This was not uncommon during the Renaissance and a rather similar technique was previously used, for example, by Andrea Mantegna in the Bridal Chamber of the Ducal Palace of Mantua.
Yet, the solution adopted by Leonardo proved problematic in the humid environment of the Milanese refectory, and just twenty years after its completion the painting was in bad conditions and almost illegible in , as Giorgio Vasari reported in his book The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.
To add insult to injury, the refectory was used as a stable by the French troops of Napoleon and bombed during World War Two. An ambitious cleansing and restoration campaign was therefore started in and completed in This moment was painted by many Tuscan artists before da Vinci, including Taddeo Gaddi, Andrea del Castagno, and Domenico Ghirlandaio; yet, Leonardo deeply changed it usual iconography, at the same time focusing on the emotional reactions and psychology of the people in the scene.
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