Da Vinci's Humanizing Last Supper

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            Leonardo da Vinci is one of history’s most diligent autobiographers and yet, the breadth of his brilliance was so wide as to leave us with a perpetually complex and enigmatic figure.  Though perhaps the bulk of his notoriety in popular culture is derived from The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa, two Renaissance Era masterpieces of inimitable fame and importance, the categorical depth of his interests and accomplishments is expansive.  And completely contained within the framework of artistic achievement, his wealth of knowledge, ingenuity and capability are all central to the accomplishments of his art.  Ironically, his limitless intellectual capacity could also be a negative factor in the pursuit of lasting artistic greatness, even suggesting the possibility that visual art was not a top priority for the mathematician, athlete, philosopher, political theorist and religious scholar.  His Last Supper, originally completed in 1498 as a commissioned adornment of a dining hall in the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent in Milan, is a prime example of this dichotomy.  Da Vinci reveals a combination of cold hard intellect, painstaking craftsmanship and an uninhibited tendency toward experimentation in a painting that tells an emotionally driven story about both its subject and its creator.

            A primary thing to consider when viewing the piece is the context in which it was conceived and carried out.  Da Vinci’s skills as a painter were well-appreciated by the public and this was a piece for which he was paid handsomely.  More to the point, the subject was the brainchild of his employer.  He had been instructed to craft this piece across the convent’s wall in accordance with the bible verse which inspired it.  The image has become the universally accepted visual depiction of Jesus Christ informing his disciples that one of them would betray him.  Da Vinci operated under the impetus of capturing this moment.  What is most immediately striking about the image is the thematic decision which informs it.  Where a conventional pre-Renaissance depiction of Christ sought to capture his glory and the righteous peace which dressed the countenances of his followers, the Last Supper is an explicitly humanistic portrait of the bible’s words.