HOW IS THE RENAISSANCE HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT? – Changes in the Arts and Science
The Last Supper The Last Supper was painted on a dining room wall of a monastery in Milan. Usually. artists used fresco when painting on walls but Leonardo was too impatient to use fresco. Instead, he used oil. However, soon after some of the paint peeled off and later artists covered over Leonardo’s original work.
‘In this work … Leonardo had imagined and succeeded in expressing the suspicion the Apostles experienced when they sought to discover who would betray their master. As a result, all their faces show their love, fear, and indignation (anger), or, rather, sorrow, over being unable to grasp Christ’s meaning.’
(G. Vasari, The Lives of the Artists)
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What happened to The Last Supper after Leonardo painted it?
Leonardo painted the moment when Christ had just said, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.’ How does this help you understand what is happening in the painting?
What do you learn about the painting by looking at these lines of perspective? 85
