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Beyond the Brush S01E06
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00:11The most important thing about this painting is this is a work of an artistic genius.
00:15He was the great polymath of his day.
00:20He understood all of the rules of painting. He understood all of the rules of perspective.
00:25This is quite a geometrical painting.
00:27It transcends religion.
00:311495, Milan.
00:33Brush in hand, Leonardo da Vinci leaned into the wall, lost in the chaos of 13 voices.
00:40Every single figure in this is an individual.
00:43Part of that is conveyed through his groupings of the apostles.
00:50He paints in bursts, layering emotion, invention, betrayal.
00:56Using his genius to bring this moment of theology to life.
01:01This painting for Leonardo is an intellectual exercise.
01:04It's almost as though he's throwing everything in the kitchen sink.
01:07And that's the great thing about this painting.
01:10After three years, his mural was complete.
01:14And perhaps never again would art capture such a powerful moment as The Last Supper.
01:19Absolutely, yeah.
01:48It's amazing and beautiful, is that unsafe, because it's a beautiful year of building.
01:57I saw this painting last year for the first time
02:00and it affected me really deeply emotionally.
02:04One thing people need to understand
02:06is that this painting is in a specific spot
02:09in a specific church.
02:11It was actually made for the dining room for the monks
02:14and so of course they're breaking bread with Christ.
02:17That's the whole concept behind it.
02:20I think when you go into the room that was the refectory
02:24that's now a museum in Santa Maria delle Grazie,
02:27there's this sense of being overawed.
02:30It's a dark space, a simple space,
02:32but you are just enraptured by how realistic
02:36and how tangible this painting is.
02:39It's 500 years old, yet it is so vivid and so modern.
02:48But when you see this at the end of the room,
02:51you'll see that the perspective works with the actual room it's in.
02:54So it's so beyond clever.
02:56It's so beyond technical mastery.
03:00And then on the other side of the dining room,
03:03there was a crucifixion, which was done at the same time as this was.
03:06And so if you switched around and went behind Christ's shoulder and looked over his shoulder,
03:12he's looking at the events of the next day, which is his own crucifixion.
03:16So it's super powerful in its position, and that makes it important.
03:21Leonardo da Vinci is widely regarded as the greatest painter in history,
03:27celebrated for his timeless masterpieces that continue to captivate audiences around the world.
03:33But what makes The Last Supper stand out as one of the most extraordinary works?
03:37Let's start with the man himself to find out.
03:43Today, we remember Leonardo da Vinci most famously for his painting, for being a draftsman.
03:50But of course, he was the great polymath of his day.
03:55Leonardo was a Renaissance man.
03:57So a Renaissance man means that they had many, many interests, many, many ideas, including philosophy.
04:02He was interested in geometry.
04:05Anatomy. He understood science.
04:07He was interested in the natural world. He was interested in engineering, hydraulics.
04:12Everything. So he was good at everything, basically.
04:15He's not described as being just an artist. He's described as being the artist and engineer to the duke.
04:22This duke was a man called Ludovico Sforza, and thanks to him, we get The Last Supper.
04:30So Ludovico Sforza, the ruler of Milan, the man who commissioned this painting, is a man who spent 75%
04:37of his annual budget on warfare.
04:40This period in history is when almost everywhere in Italy was at war with somewhere else in Italy.
04:46They were all separate city-states.
04:48And so he was brought over to design war machines for Sforza.
04:52He needs a man who is able to design weapons, who's essentially an engineer.
05:02And for Leonardo, I think there's this sense of perhaps frustration when he's working for the duke, in that so
05:09much of what he is doing is ephemeral.
05:13It might be used to make a weapon and then it's gone, a drawing, a design that's used to make
05:17some kind of fortification and then it's gone.
05:19One of the other things he did for Sforza, he was in charge of all the theatrical productions.
05:24So he was the master of ceremonies, really.
05:26He's designing the plays, he's designing the costumes, he's designing the sets.
05:31And entertainments and theatrical productions, and then they're gone.
05:35And he wants something that is going to be long-lasting, something really to make his name in Milan, which
05:41he hasn't done so far.
05:43And I think almost there's a little bit of a chip on his shoulder because the huge project that he
05:48was really hoping would make his name, in fact, never came to anything.
05:52And that was a huge equestrian monument that, had it been completed, would have weighed 75 tons of bronze.
05:59But sadly, it came to nothing.
06:01All that Leonardo actually completed was the clay model.
06:07As with many, many Leonardo projects, they all remained unfinished projects.
06:15So, Ludovico Sforza commissioned Leonardo to create a mural as a symbolic centerpiece for the monks.
06:22This was his big opportunity.
06:25And he certainly didn't hold back.
06:28Using his genius, he poured his devotion into every detail.
06:33So I think Leonardo feels this great sense of frustration.
06:36And that's why he plows so much energy into The Last Supper.
06:42Leonardo was meticulous.
06:45He worked slowly and thoughtfully.
06:50Over the course of roughly three years, he completed the painting.
06:56But what is it that made The Last Supper be hailed as a masterpiece of genius?
07:12What makes this painting so different is that it transcends religion.
07:19It transcends religion, and it's a psychological masterpiece.
07:23And I think this goes back to his theatre work as well.
07:26But I also think it's to do with the fact that he thought movement came from the soul as well.
07:31So every single figure in this is an individual.
07:38It's very, very different from other portrayals of The Last Supper.
07:42Now, if you compare this view of The Last Supper with others, which Leonardo would have been very familiar with,
07:50such as Ghirlandaio's Last Supper, such as Tadeo Gadi's Last Supper in Santa Croce, which is a little bit earlier,
07:59all of these others, if you look at the apostles, they all look quite similar.
08:03They're all structured.
08:04They're all sort of quite formal and upright.
08:07There's no variation of movement.
08:10Look at earlier pictures of The Last Supper, and you'll see they're all clustered in together.
08:16They're all connected closely together, and they're all identical.
08:19It's hard to tell them apart.
08:20But in this particular one, everyone is an individual, and that means we can connect with them,
08:25and that makes it a really interesting painting.
08:33It's extremely dramatic, and part of that is conveyed through his groupings of the apostles.
08:46I think this is a masterclass in understanding gestures.
08:50And if you look at their expressions, and particularly their gestures, they're all doing something a little bit different.
08:56It's extremely dynamic, and it seems to be quite spontaneous and quite explosive.
09:01Christ is very calm in the middle, and all of the others are gesturing, or the shock of Christ saying,
09:08one of you will betray me.
09:13Now there are 12 apostles, and they're structured into four groups of three.
09:18And it's clearly divided so that all of them are focusing towards Christ.
09:23And each of these groups seems to be a self-contained group.
09:32From the three figures on the left, including Bartholomew, who have these expressions almost of disbelief,
09:38to the second group, the second group, the central figure is St. Peter.
09:43And he looks as though he's ready to attack whoever the betrayer is,
09:48because this is the moment where Christ has said, one of you is going to betray me.
09:58He's got a knife in his hand, and you might imagine that he's about to get up and attack whoever
10:05the betrayer would be.
10:08And that betrayer, who, unbeknownst to St. Peter, would be shrinking into his seat right next to him.
10:18One of the most intriguing, and I think brilliantly dramatic, choices that Leonardo makes is his placement of Judas.
10:27The vast majority portrayals of The Last Supper, Judas is on this side of the table.
10:32It's a way of distinguishing him. It's a way of identifying him as being the one who is the betrayer.
10:41But here, as the viewer, we are caught up in the disbelief, and we are caught up in the question
10:47mark,
10:47because we too are forced to try and identify who the betrayer might be.
10:55It's not made obvious to us.
10:56Judas is the key to this painting because he's incorporated in the 13 figures.
11:02He's in the shadows, but he's incorporated.
11:05Not only has he put him on the other side of the table, he's put him to Christ's right hand.
11:10The right hand of Christ is the place of honour. It's the most important.
11:14Well, actually, John is the one that's right next to Christ, but just too long from him, we find Judas.
11:21So the fear and the distrust and the betrayal comes from within the group, and that changes the psychology of
11:28the painting.
11:31So how can we identify Judas?
11:34We can identify him in a number of ways.
11:38He is reaching out towards a bowl, and Christ is also reaching to that bowl.
11:44And in the Bible, we are told that he who dips his hand in the bowl will betray me.
11:50And you can see him reaching forward, and then there's a sense of, maybe I'm not going to do it
11:55after all.
11:56And then Christ reaching forward, but not quite touching the bowl.
11:59And there's a sense of tension in Christ's right hand there.
12:03So there's a moment of tension on the table.
12:05But also, if you look closely, and it's more evident in reproductions of the painting by other artists,
12:11he's knocking over a salt cellar.
12:16Even today is bad luck, isn't it, if you knock over the salt.
12:20And that superstition existed at that period as well.
12:24So there are all these clues to his identity, but he's not made it obvious.
12:29The final clue that this is Judas is in his right hand.
12:34He is clutching a bag of silver, the very bribe he received to betray Jesus.
12:40I think the third group is perhaps the most powerful, for me, the most beautiful.
12:46You have St. Thomas, who is an intriguing jester.
12:50He's pointing up to this guy as if to challenge the authority of God,
12:57as if to question how can God let this happen.
13:00And then next to him, the figure of James, who is literally throwing his arms out.
13:07It's such an expressive jester, he cannot believe what he's hearing.
13:13These 13 figures aren't placed at random.
13:16They're part of a meticulously planned composition.
13:20Leonardo used geometry and mathematical precision to bring this powerful moment to life.
13:27He understood all of the rules of painting.
13:30He understood all of the rules of perspective.
13:32And he also understood how to break those rules.
13:35If we look at this painting, that table is far too wide for the room.
13:41And that's how he manages to fit 13 people across that table.
13:45And he's done this very, very cleverly by focusing on Christ.
13:49We have to go back to perspective on this for the composition.
13:53The perspective is really, really important.
13:55It comes from Christ's right temple.
13:58Everything comes from Christ.
14:07So he's using mathematics to structure the painting.
14:12But he's also interested in geometry.
14:15This is quite a geometrical painting.
14:21There is an equilateral triangle.
14:23If you take the lines of the orthogonals bringing you from the coffered ceiling on either side,
14:30that takes you down to just at the bottom of Christ.
14:35So you've got an inverted equilateral triangle there.
14:38You have another triangle which is implied if you look from Christ's head alongside either arm.
14:45So you have triangles.
14:46So you have triangles.
14:47You have squares.
14:48You have pentagons.
14:52Now I'm going to talk about a part of the painting that we don't see so often or we don't
14:58think
14:58about so often because the Last Supper isn't just a rectangle.
15:02The Last Supper also contains three lunettes over the painting.
15:06And the central lunette contains the coat of arms of Ludovico Sforza, the man who paid for the work.
15:13And if you take the line of that lunette and you continue it down, you very much have an implied
15:19circle.
15:21Why would he do that?
15:25Well, there was a belief that various geometrical shapes had divine meaning.
15:30So the equilateral triangle is symbolic of the Trinity.
15:34The pentagon is symbolic of the five wounds of Christ.
15:39The circle, which is implied by the lunette above the painting, is symbolic of eternity and thereby God,
15:49because it has no beginning and no end.
16:00I'm not a great one for conspiracy theories.
16:03And this is one of those paintings that has many, many conspiracy theories.
16:09So I'm not going to talk about all of them, but I'll talk about the most important one.
16:13And that is the idea that Mary Magdalene is in this painting, that there's a woman in this painting.
16:21And that figure in the painting is John.
16:26So John in this painting is supposedly Mary Magdalene.
16:32But we can look at depictions of John going right back to the 10th century, where John is young.
16:38He's Christ's favorite disciple.
16:40He's young and therefore he doesn't have a beard.
16:44It's a way of people recognizing straight away the concept of somebody.
16:50And quite often during the Renaissance, if you look at other Leonardo paintings or paintings by other Renaissance masters,
16:56the younger boys tended to be feminized.
16:59And it's the idea of idealized beauty.
17:02So the idea that this is a woman in the painting is absolute nonsense.
17:08There are lots of ideas and suggestions as to, you know, is the figure of John the Evangelist actually Mary
17:17Magdalene?
17:17There are a lot of theories which are quite fanciful.
17:20But I think that Leonardo made this painting with various levels of meaning and symbolism attached,
17:27some of which have been unraveled, some of which perhaps are yet to be unraveled.
17:32From the missing chalice to the hidden symbolism, The Last Supper is shrouded in mystery.
17:40It invites countless questions and theories.
17:43A fascination that has helped preserve its relevance and captivation even to this day.
17:51There are lots and lots of theories about this painting.
17:54But I think people just forget the most important thing about this painting is that it's a work of genius.
18:00This is a work of an artistic genius.
18:02And all of these other theories behind it are just 20th century nonsense.
18:13I think it's also quite interesting to touch upon the possibility that there is a musical connection in this painting.
18:22Leonardo da Vinci's activities as a musician are less well recorded.
18:28But what is quite interesting is that he seems perhaps to have come to the Swarza court in Milan in
18:34his capacity both as a painter and a musician.
18:40We know that he wrote music, although sadly none of that music has come down to us.
18:45So the idea that he might be bringing musical theory into his paintings is not so remote as we might
18:51imagine.
18:52And there's a purposeful drawing for this painting which is in the Royal Collection which has a series of numbers
18:59to one side which seem to relate to musical ratios or musical proportions such as the octave, fourths and fifths.
19:08Now if you look at these tapestries on either side of the wall, I know they look like huge doors,
19:13huge cavernous doors, but originally these were tapestries.
19:17Very, very, very much of the painting sadly has been lost and their relation, their proportion to one another seems
19:24to be structured according to musical proportions, fourths and fifths and octaves.
19:32Leonardo talks about correlation between visual proportions and ratios and musical ratios in his writings, so I don't think it
19:40will come as any surprise to think that he will be doing this in a work of art as well.
19:47Despite its brilliance, The Last Supper has suffered greatly over the centuries.
19:52Environmental damage and the fragile technique Leonardo used has left the painting faded and flaking.
20:00So normally with a painting like this, it would have been done on fresh plaster, hence the term fresco, meaning
20:05fresh in Italian.
20:06So it would have been done on wet plaster, whereas he does this on dry plaster and that's going to
20:13cause a huge, huge problem because this was in the dining room of the refectory and behind this specific painting
20:20was the kitchen and the kitchen is going to cause damp.
20:24So you're going to get a lot of damp, so you're going to get a lot of damp coming through
20:25and that's going to make the fresco fall off.
20:29So, just 20 years after Leonardo completed The Last Supper, the painting began to flake and deteriorate.
20:37And yet, despite its fragile state, The Last Supper has endured as a deeply spiritual masterpiece, transcending the damage and
20:46decay.
20:48I'm also very moved when we consider the history of the history of the painting because it has suffered so
20:53much with the vicissitudes of time and damage and botched restoration attempts and bombing during the Second World War.
21:00It's just extraordinary that it has survived, so I think it's a very moving experience.
21:05But thanks to the tireless dedication of modern restorers, most notably Pinin Brambilla Barcelon, who spent over 20 years carefully
21:14preserving what remained, this masterpiece still stands as a powerful window into Leonardo's vision.
21:22So, as you reflect on its beauty, remember that what we see today is a testament not only to the
21:29artist, but to those who fought to keep his work alive.
21:32This is a painting that has been restored so many times.
21:36It was nearly destroyed during World War II.
21:39Experts estimate that only about 20 to 25 percent of this painting is actually by Leonardo.
21:49But the most important thing is that 25 percent of Leonardo is better than 100 percent of most other artists.
21:57And that's the great thing about this painting.
22:01Although Leonardo never painted another mural again, it was this painting that forever immortalized his genius.
22:08A timeless symbol of faith, human connection, and the profound spirit that continues to inspire all who encounter...
22:17The Last Supper.
22:30The Last Supper.
22:31The Last Supper.
22:31The Last Supper.
22:31The Last Supper.
22:32The Last Supper.
22:32The Last Supper.
22:32The Last Supper.
22:32The Last Supper.
22:32The Last Supper.
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