Leonardo da Vinci's famous mural painting The Last Supper, created between 1495-98, depicts the biblical scene from the Gospel of John where Jesus declares one of his twelve apostles will betray him. The painting shows the reaction of each apostle and through its mathematical symbolism, psychological complexity, and use of perspective was highly influential as one of the first works of High Renaissance art. However, due to being painted directly on a stone wall rather than a wooden panel, the work rapidly deteriorated and required extensive restoration despite remaining one of the greatest Renaissance works.
Leonardo da Vinci's famous mural painting The Last Supper, created between 1495-98, depicts the biblical scene from the Gospel of John where Jesus declares one of his twelve apostles will betray him. The painting shows the reaction of each apostle and through its mathematical symbolism, psychological complexity, and use of perspective was highly influential as one of the first works of High Renaissance art. However, due to being painted directly on a stone wall rather than a wooden panel, the work rapidly deteriorated and required extensive restoration despite remaining one of the greatest Renaissance works.
Leonardo da Vinci's famous mural painting The Last Supper, created between 1495-98, depicts the biblical scene from the Gospel of John where Jesus declares one of his twelve apostles will betray him. The painting shows the reaction of each apostle and through its mathematical symbolism, psychological complexity, and use of perspective was highly influential as one of the first works of High Renaissance art. However, due to being painted directly on a stone wall rather than a wooden panel, the work rapidly deteriorated and required extensive restoration despite remaining one of the greatest Renaissance works.
Created during the period 1495-98, Leonardo da Vinci's mural
painting known as The Last Supper - a masterpiece of the
Italian High Renaissance and one of the best-known works of Christian art - illustrates the scene from the last days of Jesus Christ, as described in the Gospel of John 13:21. Flanked by his twelve apostles, Jesus has just declared that one of them will betray him. ("Verily I say unto you: one of you will betray me.") The picture depicts the reaction of each disciple to the news. Although on the surface it looks like a straightforward piece of Biblical art, it is in fact an exceptionally complex work, whose mathematical symbolism, psychological complexity, use of perspective and dramatic focus, make it the first real example of High Renaissance aesthetics. Leonardo first sealed the stone wall surface and then painted over it with tempera and oils, as if it were a wooden panel. As a result, the work began deteriorating almost from the moment it was finished - writing a mere 70 years later, the biographer Giorgio Vasari described it as "so badly done that all that can now be seen of it is a glaring spot" - and has been the subject of a recent 20-year restoration campaign. Even so, the work remains one of the greatest Renaissance paintings.