The century of ColumbusWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
History
The century of Columbus
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Renaissance
As has been well said, Leonardo broke up the old formality and
immobility of the earlier painters and brought life and action into
the scene. For the first time the personages are deprived of their
halos and there is nothing to make the group of men anything more than
human beings deeply interested in a great purpose and disturbed to the
depths of their beings by the suggestion from the Master Himself that
now that purpose was to be thwarted by the treason of one of their
number. This conception seems all the more natural when we recall that
none of them had as yet been confirmed in grace, that one was to deny,
another betray and all were to be hesitant and cowardly in a great
moment of trial.
With all this of thought in Leonardo's picture it might be expected
that all of his attention would be given to the faces and little to
the composition itself and to the setting of the picture. The exact
contrary is what happens. The composition is probably the most
wonderful ever done. The room itself is so arranged that everything
leads the eye toward the centre of the picture where the Master sits,
while behind Him the middle one of three windows, with an arched
casement, frames Him apart from the Apostles. Through these three
windows at the back can be seen one of the varied mountainous
landscapes that Leonardo delighted in. The extent of the landscape
which can be seen shows that the supper was held in an "upper room."
The bare beams of the ceiling in that coffered arrangement common in
Italy, the walls ornamented with large panel spaces filled in with a
damasked pattern are all worked over with artistic completeness of
detail. It is details of this kind one might expect the painter of the
Last Supper to have overlooked in his intentness on the sublime moment
and the characters. The tablecloth, moreover, is beautifully worked
and the linen and the pattern of it and the folds are done with as
meticulous care as one might expect from a _genre_ painter of tissues.
The glasses and table service are very carefully drawn and every
detail was executed with {20} an artistic conscience and eye to
perfection, even of trifles, that reveals the thoroughness and
all-embracing skill of the artist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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