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| Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper (click on images to enlarge) |
The damage to Leonardo da Vinci’s
famous Last Supper is well known. Even after the most recent restoration the
huge fresco that measures over 29 by 15 feet is in such perilous condition that
viewing access is strictly controlled and limited.
We know from early copies that much
of Leonardo’s work has been irretrievably lost or covered. Early on, the feet
of Christ and the Apostles had so disappeared that the monks had no reluctance
to put a door in the wall under the figure of Christ. We know of this from
copies but even the earliest copies are often unreliable. They either omit or alter certain
important details. Finally, although the painting is still in its original
venue, it is impossible to replicate the monk’s dining room and see the
painting as its original viewers would have seen it.
Compared to the physical damage that
Leonardo’s work has suffered, the interpretive damage has been even greater. Since
the eighteenth century art historians and critics have generally believed that
in the Last Supper, Leonardo depicted the moment immediately following Christ’s
announcement of his betrayal. Over 50 years ago in the very popular series of
Metropolitan Museum seminars in Art, critic John Canaday wrote,
The Last Supper is a great picture with a religious subject. That is not exactly the same thing as saying that The Last Supper is a great religious picture, which it is not…. Nor did Leonardo intend it to be one. In all reverence he conceived of the moment when Christ says to his disciples, “One of you will betray me”, as a moment of unparalleled human drama.
Even today, a quick web search shows
that the lead Wikipedia article begins with the following pronouncement.
“The Last Supper specifically portrays the reaction given by each apostle when Jesus said one of them would betray him.”
It was this common but mistaken
interpretation that the late Leo Steinberg set out to repair in an extended
essay, “Leonardo’s Last Supper,” that appeared in the Art Quarterly in 1973.
Almost thirty years later in 2001 he published his definitive revised update,
“Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper.” Steinberg’s thesis was controversial but
anyone reading “Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper” today would have to
acknowledge that it a revolutionary masterpiece by one of the greatest art
historians of the twentieth century. [i]
Steinberg took on an academic
tradition that had been entrenched ever since the time of the Enlightenment. In
a famous essay German philosopher and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s claimed
that Leonardo had depicted the psychological shock on the faces of the Apostles
at the moment immediately following the announcement of the betrayal. Goethe’s
interpretation had seemingly settled the matter for all future observers. Steinberg,
however, blamed nineteenth century secularists for a profound mis-reading.
Ideal art was believed to reveal humane truths which the service of religion could only divert and distort. And it was again in Leonardo in whom these highest artistic goals, originally embodied in ancient Greece, seemed reaffirmed. In this projection of nineteenth-century values upon Renaissance art, the masterworks of the Renaissance were reduced to intelligible simplicity, and Leonardo’s Last Supper became (nothing but) a behavioral study of twelve individuals responding to psychic shock. [ii]
Reading Steinberg’s “Incessant Last
Supper” not only brings one deeper and deeper into a great masterpiece, but
also deeper and deeper into the mind and culture of the genius who was
Leonardo. Beginning with the general principle “that nothing in Leonardo’s Last Supper is trivial,” Steinberg asserted that the subject of the picture was the whole story of the Last Supper; the Institution of the Eucharist, the Passion, and the significance of it all to the viewer.
To illustrate his thesis
I would like to concentrate on Steinberg’s analysis of Leonardo’s portrayal of
the Apostles. Leonardo
obviously knew his Apostles and the legends that had grown up about them. Their
appearance, their gestures, and their placement show that they are reacting in their
own characteristic way to the announcement, “This is My Body…Take and eat.”
From left to right the Apostles are Bartholomew,
James (the eventual head of the Church in Jerusalem), Andrew, Peter, Judas, and
John. On the other side there are James (the son of Zebedee), Thomas (who has
thrust himself ahead of James), Philip, Matthew, Thaddeus (sometimes called
Jude), and Simon.
Much of the detail of the original has been lost
but an anonymous copy c. 1550, gives a very good look at the hands and feet of
the 13 men in the picture. Steinberg’s stressed the significance not only of
the feet of Christ but of the Apostles. Christ’s feet are central and larger
and they announce his impending crucifixion. The feet of the Apostles are there
to be washed but also represent their role and future destiny.
this very night, each of these feet is washed and wiped dry by the Master. In view of the gospel…how negligible can these feet be; surely, this is their hour![iii]
While he stressed the importance of viewing Christ
and the Apostles as a whole, Steinberg also broke them down into groups of six,
three and two, and discussed the various relationships in these groups. Here
are some examples.
Let’s
start with the triad of Simon, Thaddeus, and Matthew on our right at the end of
the table.
A flotilla of six open hands in formation strains toward Christ, as if in immediate response to the word “take!” ….the Communion of the Apostles is imminent.[iv]
Hands
take on special significance. The “affinity” of the left hand of Thaddeus to
the left hand of Christ “leaps to the eye.”
Thaddeus’ hand toward Christ; Christ’s toward us. It is missing a lot to dismiss the correspondence as accidental.
Feet,
hands, even fingers are important. In the triad at Christ’s left hand (Philip,
Thomas, James) the finger of Thomas, who has thrust himself forward toward
Jesus, is a veritable sign marker, “the
finger destined to verify the Resurrection, the Christian hope….“
this upright finger occurs in Leonardo’s rare paintings no less than four times, invariably pointing to heaven…The steeple finger is Leonardo’s trusted sign of transcendence…[v]
The triad
closest to Christ’s right hand includes Peter who denies, Judas who betrays,
and John who remains to the end at the foot of the Cross.
The inner triad refers to imminent Crucifixion. It contains the dark force that sets the Passion in motion, then, behind Judas, St. Peter. Peter’s right hand points the knife he will ply a few hours hence at the arrest. And the interlocking hands of the beloved disciple are pre-positioned for their grieving on Calvary.
None of these gestures can be explained as a reaction to the betrayal announcement.
Finally, no review can do justice to Steinberg’s discussion of the figure of
Christ, who can no longer seen as a passive figure sitting back while the Apostles
react to the betrayal announcement.
as the person of Christ unites man and God, so his right hand summons the agent of his human death even as it offers the means of salvation….the Christ figure as agent—both hands actively molding his speech, and both directed at bread and wine…[vi]
Unfortunately,
Goethe only saw the painting briefly in Milan. In his analysis he relied on a
copy that left out the bread and wine of the Eucharist. For Steinberg, the
institution of the Eucharist is central to the painting.
Christ becomes the capstone of a great central pyramid…And midway between the…slopes of Christ arms and the floor lines that transmit their momentum, exactly halfway, there lies the bread, and there lies the wine.[vii]
Steinberg
backed up his interpretation with a virtuoso display of all the tools available
to a modern art historian. He displayed a magisterial familiarity with the
interpretive history; the texts; the traditional legends; the related
paintings; and with the whole oeuvre of Leonardo. More than anything else,
however, was his ability to immerse himself in the whole culture and devotion
of Medieval and Renaissance Christianity.
He was born a Russian Jew and emigrated to America right after World War
II. He somehow managed to graduate from Harvard and land a position at New York
University where his original field was modern art. But he eventually
gravitated to the Renaissance, and his integrity and great learning allowed him
to see the “Last Supper” through the believing eyes of Leonardo’s
contemporaries.
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