WEBVTT - Why Was 'The Last Supper' the Masterpiece Leonardo da Vinci Didn't Want to Paint?

0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.520
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey,

0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:10.480
<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here located on the wall of

0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:13.640
<v Speaker 1>Milan's Convent of Santa Maria de la Gracia, is a

0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:15.880
<v Speaker 1>work of art that's considered by many to be one

0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.239
<v Speaker 1>of the greatest artistic masterpieces of all time. Leonardo da

0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.560
<v Speaker 1>Vinci is the Last Supper, but da Vinci wasn't exactly

0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:24.880
<v Speaker 1>stoked about it when the Duke of Milan commissioned the

0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.960
<v Speaker 1>piece in fourteen ninety four. We spoke with art historian

0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.159
<v Speaker 1>Ross King, the author of several books on Italian, French

0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.720
<v Speaker 1>and Canadian art history. He said Leonardo did not want

0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.519
<v Speaker 1>to paint the Last Supper. Instead, he wanted to do

0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.400
<v Speaker 1>a gigantic bronze equestrian moment, a monumental work that would

0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:44.960
<v Speaker 1>certainly have made him famous. But the outbreak of war

0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.040
<v Speaker 1>in fourteen four meant he couldn't do his bronze horse,

0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.479
<v Speaker 1>so as compensation, he was given the task of painting

0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:53.760
<v Speaker 1>a wall in a room where a band of Friars

0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.680
<v Speaker 1>ate their dinner every day. He had never painted on

0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.560
<v Speaker 1>such a large scale, having little experience in such a

0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:03.240
<v Speaker 1>difficult task, it's not surprising that he complained bitterly about

0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.280
<v Speaker 1>the commission, at which it was entirely possible that he

0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:11.800
<v Speaker 1>would fail miserably. Happily, the story turned out otherwise. What

0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:15.480
<v Speaker 1>resulted from da Vinci's hesitant participation is a mural that

0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:17.960
<v Speaker 1>famously depicts the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with his

0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.720
<v Speaker 1>apostles on the day before his crucifixion. The scene is

0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.320
<v Speaker 1>based on the description in the Gospel of John twenty one,

0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.520
<v Speaker 1>and da Vinci intended to convey the reactions of jesus

0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:30.840
<v Speaker 1>disciples the moment that they learned that one of them

0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.399
<v Speaker 1>would betray him. King, says da Vinci's The Last Supper

0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:38.360
<v Speaker 1>is particularly important for a variety of reasons, perhaps most

0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.520
<v Speaker 1>of all for its elevation of the artist to celebrity status.

0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.520
<v Speaker 1>He said. It's completion marks the moment when Leonardo, then

0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.680
<v Speaker 1>in his mid forties, finally created what he called a

0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.040
<v Speaker 1>work of fame. It's amazing to think that before The

0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:56.400
<v Speaker 1>Last Supper Leonardo had achieved very little. Petty died in say,

0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.280
<v Speaker 1>four two, when he was forty. He would have been

0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:01.960
<v Speaker 1>little more than a footnote in art history, known as

0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:05.240
<v Speaker 1>someone who showed enormous promise but never delivered the goods,

0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:09.680
<v Speaker 1>but with the Last Supper he delivered spectacularly. Without having

0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.519
<v Speaker 1>created the Last Supper, he probably would never have received

0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.920
<v Speaker 1>his later commissions, including the Mona Lisa, So the work

0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.000
<v Speaker 1>was absolutely crucial, not only to the history of art,

0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:23.280
<v Speaker 1>but also to his own career. One special feature of

0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.880
<v Speaker 1>The Last Supper is its sheer size, approximately fifteen by

0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:29.240
<v Speaker 1>twenty nine feet that's four and a half meters by

0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.880
<v Speaker 1>about eight point eight meters. King said no one else

0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.320
<v Speaker 1>in history had ever created such a large painting was

0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.200
<v Speaker 1>such a great level of realistic detail, as well as

0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:42.160
<v Speaker 1>with such believable emotions and dramatic expressions. No one who

0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.600
<v Speaker 1>painted a Last Supper in the centuries afterward could do

0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:49.519
<v Speaker 1>so without an eye on Leonardo's masterpiece. Da Vinci opted

0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:53.040
<v Speaker 1>to portray one pivotal moment in the scene, instant just

0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.320
<v Speaker 1>before the creation of the Eucharist or Holy Communion, when,

0:02:56.480 --> 0:03:00.280
<v Speaker 1>according to the Bible Versus Corinthians eleven to twenty X,

0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.080
<v Speaker 1>Jesus reaches for the bread and wine and tells the

0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.920
<v Speaker 1>apostles that they represent his body and blood to be

0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:10.200
<v Speaker 1>consumed in remembrance of him. Da Vinci's notebooks are a

0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:12.600
<v Speaker 1>key to who the key players are in the painting,

0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:16.160
<v Speaker 1>although experts still argue over some of the details. In

0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:20.079
<v Speaker 1>one group, Bartholomew, James and Andrew sit together and look

0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.640
<v Speaker 1>genuinely shocked at what Jesus has just revealed. In another group,

0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:27.720
<v Speaker 1>there's Judas, Peter and John. Judas, the known betrayer, has

0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.200
<v Speaker 1>a lot going on. He's fading into the background a bit.

0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:33.000
<v Speaker 1>He's holding a bag of money, and he's knocking over

0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.240
<v Speaker 1>a salt shaker, which experts say is meant to symbolize

0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.760
<v Speaker 1>the expression tipping over the salt, which means betraying one's master.

0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:42.920
<v Speaker 1>Jesus sits in the middle of the group, and on

0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:46.160
<v Speaker 1>his other side are Apostle, Thomas, James the Greater and Philip,

0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:50.400
<v Speaker 1>then Matthew, Jude and Simon. The symmetry of the figures

0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.360
<v Speaker 1>and i pleasing use of perspective are signature da Vinci,

0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.080
<v Speaker 1>but there are tons of details that art scholars continue

0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.720
<v Speaker 1>to debate and dissect. Take the fish on the table,

0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.400
<v Speaker 1>for example, is it airing or eel? In Italian, the

0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.200
<v Speaker 1>word eel is a ringa, which might be a sort

0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:10.480
<v Speaker 1>of pun on the word ringa with two rs, meaning indoctrination. However,

0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.280
<v Speaker 1>the word herring in Northern Italian is ringa, also meaning

0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:19.400
<v Speaker 1>one who denies religion. But the content and composition of

0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.040
<v Speaker 1>the Last Supper aren't the only reasons why the painting

0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:26.640
<v Speaker 1>remains legendary. King explained it has a very sad history.

0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.160
<v Speaker 1>The paint began flaking from the wall because of a

0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.840
<v Speaker 1>perfect storm of bad climatic conditions in the refectory, mainly

0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.719
<v Speaker 1>cold and damp. That might not have been such a

0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:39.400
<v Speaker 1>problem had Leonardo worked in the true fresco technique, which

0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.560
<v Speaker 1>makes for very durable paintings, but he devised a method

0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:44.919
<v Speaker 1>of his own that involved painting in oil and tempera

0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.359
<v Speaker 1>on a dry wall, something artists were discouraged from doing.

0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.919
<v Speaker 1>His technique, unsurprisingly, did not prove successful. Due to Da

0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.200
<v Speaker 1>Vinci's ill advised choices and the poor custodianship in the

0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:59.719
<v Speaker 1>centuries that followed the creation of the painting, the Last

0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.560
<v Speaker 1>sup first started to look rough, and then things got worse.

0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:07.920
<v Speaker 1>King said the work was insensitively restored by conservators who

0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.520
<v Speaker 1>didn't know what they were doing and caused more harm

0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.320
<v Speaker 1>than good. In sixteen fifty two, in a kind of

0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.240
<v Speaker 1>act of vandalism, the friars from the convent knocked a

0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.080
<v Speaker 1>hole in the wall, amputating Christ's feet to create a

0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.880
<v Speaker 1>doorway through the painting. The refectory flooded in the nineteenth

0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:26.120
<v Speaker 1>century and Napoleon used the building as a stable, which

0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.440
<v Speaker 1>meant it was filled with horses and manure. Then, during

0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.440
<v Speaker 1>World War Two it barely survived a bomb that destroyed

0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:34.839
<v Speaker 1>much of the refectory. The fact that we still have

0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:43.320
<v Speaker 1>it to enjoy is little short of miraculous. Today's episode

0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.159
<v Speaker 1>was written by Michelle Konstantinovski and produced by Tyler Klang.

0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:48.320
<v Speaker 1>For more on this and lots of other topics, visit

0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:50.880
<v Speaker 1>has Stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of

0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.440
<v Speaker 1>I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,

0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.240
<v Speaker 1>visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:57.600
<v Speaker 1>you listen to your favorite shows.