Jesus has just said, “One of you will betray me,” and shock, anger and denial ripple through the twelve apostles. Leonardo painted that instant on the wall of a monastery refectory in Milan, creating the most famous religious image in Western art.
Key facts
- Artist
- Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519 · Italian
- Date
- c. 1495–98
- Period
- Renaissance1400–1520
- Medium
- Tempera and oil on plaster
- Dimensions
- 460 × 880 cm
- Location
- Santa Maria delle Grazie Milan, Italy
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#685749#8F7C6E#3C2B1C#4F3F30#B8A99EBackground
The commission came from Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, who planned to make the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie his family mausoleum. He asked Leonardo to paint the Last Supper on the north wall of the monks' refectory, so that the friars would seem to dine with Christ.
A contemporary recalled that Leonardo sometimes painted from dawn to dusk without stopping, and at other times stood before the wall for days, added a stroke or two and left. When the prior complained to the Duke about the delay, Leonardo reputedly replied that if he could not find a face for Judas, he would use the prior's.
The painting began to flake within years of completion. In the seventeenth century the friars cut a doorway through the wall, removing Christ's feet; in 1943 an Allied bomb hit the refectory, and the wall survived only because it had been shored up with sandbags. A restoration from 1978 to 1999 took twenty-one years to remove centuries of overpaint and grime.
Technique & composition
Wall paintings were traditionally made in , which must be finished while the plaster is wet. Leonardo refused that constraint and painted in tempera and oil on the dry wall so he could work slowly and revise. Unfortunately the paint never bonded with the wall; that experiment is why the work deteriorated so fast.
The room is built with rigorous : and the tapestries along the walls all converge on Christ's right temple. The painted space continues the real architecture of the refectory, as if the wall opened into another room.
The twelve apostles are arranged in four groups of three, each reacting with gestures and expressions. sits alone at the centre, his body a calm triangle against the agitation around him, and behind forms a natural halo.
Details
Symbolism
Judas and the purse
Earlier painters usually isolated Judas on the other side of the table. Leonardo seats among the others and marks his betrayal only by his recoiling body, the shadow on his face and the purse clutched in his hand; his elbow has even knocked over the salt.
Peter's knife
An agitated Peter leans towards John to ask who the traitor is, a knife in his hand, foreshadowing the moment in Gethsemane when he cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant.
Thomas's finger
To Christ's left, raises his index finger as if in question, foreshadowing how he would later insist on touching Christ's wounds before believing in the Resurrection: “doubting Thomas”.
Bread and wine
Christ's hands reach towards the bread and the wine, pointing to the Eucharist he is about to institute: the bread as his body, the wine as his blood.
Stories
- Did you know?
Visits to The Last Supper must be booked in advance; each group of around thirty people may stay only fifteen minutes, to control humidity and dust.
- Did you know?
The seventeenth-century doorway at the bottom centre is still visible as an arched gap; that is where Christ's feet disappeared.
- Did you know?
The novel The Da Vinci Code claims that the figure at Christ's right is Mary Magdalene. Art historians agree it is the young apostle John, whom Renaissance painters conventionally showed as beardless and gentle.
Legacy
The Last Supper replaced the static rows of medieval art with psychological drama and became a model for narrative painting. It marks the beginning of the High Renaissance and influenced Raphael and generations of artists; Rubens and Rembrandt both made drawings after it.
It is also one of the most parodied compositions in popular culture, from film posters to political cartoons; any long table with a row of figures instantly evokes it. In 1980 the church and the mural were inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
