Renaissance Painting Leonardos Last Supper

Leonardo's Last Supper (1495-1498) does something very different from the other Renaissance portrayals of this scene from the Gospel. Unlike Andrea del Castagno's or Domenico Ghirlandaio's Last Supper versions, Leonardo's is at once more earthly (neither Christ nor the Apostles wear halos) and chaotic than the others -- and yet at the same time it is substantially more divine and imposing in its stark simplicity. This paper will trace the compositional, stylistic and symbolic development of the story of the Last Supper as it is told by Leonardo da Vinci in his masterpiece of the same name.

The first thing to note about the composition of Leonardo's Last Supper is that there is a distinct separation between the space occupied by Christ and the Apostles and the viewer. They exist together, cramped, huddled, literally on top of one another on one side of a long table covered like an altar by white linen. (There is a religious significance to that linen as represented by the movement of Christ's hands in the portrait -- but this shall be described shortly). The viewer, on the other hand, is left standing, looking up at the painting -- outside the perspective given the picture by Leonardo (the vanishing line passes through Christ, whose head is at the center of the picture -- but the line of perspective itself passes over the head of the viewer in real life if he is visiting the actual monastery where the picture is. Thus, the painting immediately demands of the viewer that he look up -- that he elevate himself to the subject of the painting. Leonardo is thus requiring that the viewer be lifted in order to contemplate the eternal mysteries described in the painting. It is a practical but necessary point underlying the artistic expression made by the painter: the viewer must work -- must climb to really begin to be part of what is going on. And even then there is the line of demarcation -- the table and the setting of the Apostles at the table -- that keeps the viewer from actually entering into the painting's space. Again, it is a deliberate and spiritually significant representation by Leonardo ("The Last Supper"). The room depicted in the painting is like a church's sanctuary, the table like the altar rail separating the laity from the sacrament confected here by Christ (his Body and Blood present under the species of Bread and Wine).

This sacrament (the transubstantiation) in which Christ Himself declares the bread and wine to be his Body and Blood was known as the Holy Eucharist or Communion in the Church. In the painting, this moment of transubstantiation is being depicted by Leonardo as Christ reaches out with his left hand toward a life of bread and with his right towards a glass of wine. At the same time, the Apostles are reacting with consternation and confusion -- and the viewer is left wondering whether they are reacting to this mystery of the Eucharist or if they are reacting to something else from the Gospel -- namely, the declaration of Christ that one of them is about to betray him. Indeed, the reactions of the Apostles seem to justify this latter interpretation as much as the movement of Christ's hands seems to justify the former. The fact is that both narrative points are being depicted at one and the same time: the painting offers the viewers multiple levels of narrative in the one single composition -- inviting the viewer to meditate on any number of ideas being expressed all at once ("Leonardo da Vinci").

Compositionally, the scene is divided into parts -- which also makes it unique from earlier representations. In the painting by Castagno, the Apostles are more or less evenly spaced out across the composition and all sit on the opposite side of the table with Christ (save Judas, who is separated from the other eleven Apostles in order to symbolically represent his later betrayal). Curiously Christ is left of center in Castagno's painting and it is St. John, the only disciple to actually be with Christ at the crucifixion, who has center place in Castagno's painting. Likewise in Ghirlandaio's Last Supper, the same is true: Christ is left of center, with St. John beside him center of composition and Judas across from them on the other side of the table. In both of these representations, the symbolism is clear: John is the disciple who most loves Our Lord and that love is the center narrative of the painting -- juxtaposed with Judas's self-love and ultimate betrayal of Christ. In Leonardo's painting, these symbolic representations are less obvious. Leonardo places Judas on the same side of the table as the other Apostles. He is recognizable because he is cast in shadow whereas the other disciples are not, and his neck is twisted to symbolize his later hanging -- his act of despair upon realizing the enormity of his sin. Leonardo does something even more dramatic with Judas, however, than the other two painters: he has Judas reaching out with his hand towards Christ even as the rest of his body reels away from Christ: it is as though he himself is torn in two. What makes this narrative portion of the painting even more interesting is the way in which Christ's hand and Judas's hand seem to be reaching for the same thing: a bowl of water, in which they are to dip their hands before eating. (To add another layer of possible interpretation to the painting, it is unclear whether Christ is reaching towards the bowl or towards the wine -- it could be either). Judas's reach, however, is clearly for the bowl, following the idea expressed in Scripture -- that he would dipped his hand in the bowl with Christ would betray him.

This exacerbating statement is reflected in the shocked countenances of the other Apostles. They cannot believe that one of them is about to betray their Master. St. Peter is literally ready to climb over the disciples in front of him to defend Christ. He has a knife in his hands that he holds behind his back as he lunges over: this too symbolizes the later action that Peter will take in the Garden of Gethsemane when the soldiers come to arrest Christ and Peter cuts the ear off one of them. The two Apostles over whom St. Peter is attempting to climb (Judas and St. John -- a juxtaposition that dramatically builds on the precedent set by the earlier artists -- the first pope separating the great friend of Christ from the great enemy of Christ) makes up one group of three disciples. To the left of them makes a second cluster of three Apostles. On the other end of the table is a third cluster of three saints (no halos, of course), and beside Christ is the fourth cluster of three -- one of whom is St. Thomas, who holds a finger pointed upward towards Heaven -- a symbol of the faith one must have to get to Heaven and also a symbol of Doubting Thomas's own lack of faith (that same finger he will place in the wounded side of Christ after the Resurrection). Thomas is crossed by an Apostle who has his arms out at either side -- and while balance is achieved in the clustering of men, a sense of disharmony is construed as the Apostles struggle to cope with whatever Christ has just said (whether it is the turning of bread and wine into His Body and Blood or whether it is that one of them will betray him truly matters not -- both are given equal significance in the composition's narrative, both expressing ideas that are seemingly incomprehensible to the mind) ("Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper").

The stylistic development of the painting is very humanistic in its earthliness. The earlier paintings of the Last Supper still carry with them a kind of Byzantine formalism -- the characters are clean, the setting is formal, the piety and saintliness of the Apostles is evident and the separation of Judas from the others is obvious. With Leonardo's painting, the human side of the story emerges: each Apostle is attempting to cope with an idea that he simply cannot understand. Their halos are gone. There is no direct symbolism or attempt by Leonardo to portray these beings in a formalistic way. The focus is on the human rather than the divine -- though the divine is certainly manifested in Christ's calmness and in the vanishing point that passes through his head. Christ Himself is, moreover, framed by the rectangular window behind him -- and this serves to give the effect of a halo -- a naturalistic one to be sure but one nonetheless. Thus, Leonardo incorporates the setting -- the architecture -- in order to convey the idea of holiness to Christ. The serenity of the blue sky out the window couples with Christ's serene expression, rooting the composition in the heavenly while the rest of the Apostles at the table grapple with the same -- and while the viewer himself must also work both to view and understand the multiple narratives coming through at once.

Stylistically, Leonardo's Last Supper contains much more depth than Castagno's which has a Byzantine flatness to it. Ghirlandaio's has a little more depth -- but not nearly as much as Leonardo's -- which appears to reach back forever, into eternity in fact in those blue skies out the window. The way that the bodies of the Apostles are stacked on atop another in their clusters of threes as gives it depth and a degree of realism lacking in the other two earlier paintings.

Overall, Leonardo's work is unique because it takes one of the most important scenes in the Gospel and renders it in humanistic terms while mashing multiple narratives together at once so that a degree of mystery about the exact sequence of events transpiring in the composition is open for debate. At best, the painting challenges the viewer to meditate on multiple lines of activity and contrast themes while contemplating the depth, structure, and manifestation of the divine in a painting that is deeply rooted in the human. Leonardo's Last Supper thus builds on the works of earlier painters by pushing out of the formalism of the Byzantine model into the expressive, humanistic arena where emphasis is placed on realism. In a way, Leonardo also foreshadows the coming Baroque because the composition focuses on the dramatic tension of the scene and explores several different ideas in the reactions of the Apostles as Christ opens up to them and presents mysteries to them that are a lot to bear. The viewer is asked to equally bear this openness by attempting to lift himself up to the level of the painting yet still feeling blocked -- like a layman at the sanctuary railing, able to see what is happening at the altar where the Body and Blood of Christ is made present in the Eucharist. Leonardo's table in the Last Supper is a symbol of the altar -- and the Eucharistic miracle is apparent amidst the swirling chaos of the concept of betrayal. Thus, Leonardo makes a long-standing ritual of the Church into a dramatic, tension-filled situation that the Renaissance Christian could easily recognize and be moved by while considering the various symbolic, stylish and compositional qualities of the work.

Works Cited

"The Last Supper." Khan Academy. Web. 2 Oct 2016.

"Leonardo da Vinci." The Met. Web. 2 Oct 2016.

"Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper." Italian Renaissance. Web. 2 Oct 2016.