Figures in The Last Supper Painting by Leonardo daVinci

Chris J

This is probably WAY more research than I needed to do, but it should remove all doubt. I hope it looks readable when it posts.

First off: the date. I don't know where this magic "seven years" figure comes from! The date is usually given as "circa 1495." We can't date it very well, the archives of the refectory have been destroyed. Robert Payne in "Leonardo da Vinci" (NY: Doubleday 1978, p. 115) says it was started in 1494. Other books like M. Kemp and J. Roberts' "Leonardo Da Vinci" (Yale University Press, 1989) say it was begun "around 1495" (p.34). So when was it finished? There is a memo from the Duke dated June 29, 1497 (Kemp and Roberts again, as well as Kenneth Clark's "Leonardo da Vinci: An Account Of His Development As an Artist" Penguin Books, 1939, p.90 of the 1971 ed.) that speaks of it as being almost finished by that time, and there's another letter from February 1498 (Clark again) that speaks of it as if it were complete. We know Leonardo fled Milan in December 1499 after the French invaded, and he did not return until 1506. There's no account anywhere in these books of Leonardo being given seven years.

Second: "The figures representing the twelve Apostles and Christ himself were painted from living persons." Whoever wrote this doesn't seem to know very much about painting techniques back then. This sentence leaves the impression that Leonardo was painting from life right onto the wall. Leonardo definitely did not do this, and I don't think ANY painters did back then. Caravaggio around the 1590s was the first artist I know of who directly painted without making sketches first, and he was harshly criticized by his peers for it. Leonardo is estimated to have made 100 studies for the Last Supper; a dozen survive today, and among them are three sketches of Judas (Payne, p.118). Have you seen pictures of the room where the Last Supper is? It's a few feet up on a wall. Wouldn't be easier to work from a sketch than to try painting from life while standing on a ladder?

Third point: Judas, which I'll deal with before Christ since it makes more sense when you read it. This also ties in with the above point about sketching. Here's a direct quote from Payne, p.117:

Leonardo was an earnest student of faces and went to great pains to find the most perfect of models. According to Giambattista Giraldi, he searched for a long time in the Borghetto, the slums of Milan, for the face of Judas. Giraldi wrote in 1554, when there were still a few people alive who could remember Leonardo at work on the painting:

As soon as he was prepared to paint any figure, Leonardo considered first its quality and nature, whether it should be noble or plebian, gay or severe, troubled or cheerful, good or evil; and when he had grasped its nature he set out for places where he knew that people of that sort gathered together and diligently observed their faces, their manners, their habits, their movements; and as soon as he found anything that seemed suited to his purpose he noted it in pencil in the little book which he carried at all times at his girdle. My father, who took great interest in these things, told me thousands of times that Leonardo employed this method in particular for his famous painting in Milan.

So that's where Judas apparently comes from. In Kemp & Roberts they say that the model for Judas is unknown, but they suggest he might have been Semetic based on the sketches.

Fourth point: the figure of Christ. Again I'll quote straight, this time from Giorgio Vasari, writing in 1550 in his book "The Lives of the Artists". This ties some other points I made together too.

They say the Prior was in a great hurry to see the picture finished, thinking it strange that Leonardo would pass half a day at a time lost in thought. He would have desired him never to lay down his brush, as if he were digging a garden. Seeing that his importunity produced no effect, the Prior complained to the Duke, who was tormented at such length that he finally sent for Leonardo and courteously entreated him to finish the work. Leonardo, knowing the Duke was intelligent and discreet, talked fully about the painting, something he had never bothered to do with the Prior. Thus he spoke freely about his art, saying that men of genius are really doing most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form. He told the Duke that two heads remained to be done; that of Christ, the likeness of which he could not hope to find on earth, and had not yet been able to create in his imagination the perfection of heavanly grace. The other head that remained to be done was that of Judas, and this had caused him much thought, as he did not think he could depict of a man so depraved as to betray his benefactor, his Master, the Creator of the World. But he was willing in this case to seek no further, and for lack of better, he would do the head of the importunate and tactless Prior. The Duke laughed heartily, saying that Leonardo was quite right. The poor Prior was utterly confounded and went back to digging in his garden, leaving Leonardo in peace. The artist indeed finished his Judas, making him a veritable likeness of treachery and cruelty. The head of Christ, as I have said, remained unfinished.

If the story is true (Vasari's book does have a lot of inaccuracies and embellishments), than the face of Christ must have been added later by someone else at the refectory's request. (This fresco was done in an experimental medium that was unsuccessful; it was deteriorating in Leonardo's own lifetime and there were MANY reworkings/restoration attempts over the years) Leonardo DID make some sketches for Christ, as his notes mention he considered "Count Giovanni, who belongs to the household of Mortaro", and "Allesandro Carissimo of Parma" for the hand of Christ (Robert Wallace, "The World of Leonardo da Vinci", NY: Time Incorporated, 1966).

Finally, the story just doesn't add up for me. I don't see why they would go to the trouble to get "hundreds of models" for Leonardo. Did the refectory know this painting would become world-famous when it was commissioned? I don't know if Leonardo was really THAT famous at this time; we have only one first-hand account of him working on the Last Supper, from a 17-year old (Roger Whitting, "Leonardo da Vinci", Quarto 1992). Nowhere in any of these books is this story mentioned, and Vasari sure wouldn't have passed up using it in his book if he had heard it.

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