- 7 hours ago
Beyond the Brush S01E06
Category
📺
TVTranscript
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.
01:22Notice the other ghostly deixar his hair is a
01:23laugh as a woman inside and I went past who thinks of each other.
01:26It's time to read them.
01:32Now's what your message did is within the teacher.
01:33And it's like his destiny to trust the young man inside.
01:40There's a painting at the station in the river.
01:40But it has been also written in the picture where he features.
01:41Even though my mother is the district's a05 singing rock fan,
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, and 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
03:10and looked over his shoulder,
03:12he's looking at the events of the next day,
03:14which is his own crucifixion.
03:16So it's super powerful in its position,
03:19and that makes it important.
03:21Leonardo da Vinci is widely regarded as the greatest painter in history,
03:27celebrated for his timeless masterpieces
03:29that continue to captivate audiences around the world.
03:32But what makes The Last Supper stand out
03:35as one of the most extraordinary works?
03:38Let's start with the man himself to find out.
03:43Today we remember Leonardo da Vinci
03:45most 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,
04:00many, many ideas, including philosophy.
04:02He was interested in geometry.
04:05Anatomy.
04:05He understood science.
04:07He was interested in the natural world.
04:10He was interested in engineering, hydraulics.
04:12Everything.
04:13So he was good at everything, basically.
04:15He's not described as being just an artist.
04:17He's described as being the artist and engineer to the duke.
04:22This duke was a man called Ludovico Sforza.
04:25And thanks to him, we get The Last Supper.
04:30So Ludovico Sforza, the ruler of Milan,
04:33the man who commissioned this painting,
04:34is a man who spent 75% of his annual budget on warfare.
04:40This period in history is when almost everywhere in Italy
04:44was 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 is essentially an engineer.
05:02And for Leonardo, I think there's this sense of perhaps frustration when he's working for
05:08the duke, in that so much of what he is doing is ephemeral.
05:13It might be used to make a weapon and then it's gone,
05:15a drawing, a design that's used to make some 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,
05:38something really to make his name in Milan, which he hasn't done so far.
05:43And I think almost there's a little bit of a chip on his shoulder
05:46because the huge project that he was really hoping would make his name,
05:50in fact, never came to anything.
05:52And that was a huge equestrian monument that, had it been completed,
05:56would 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
06:20as a symbolic centrepiece for the monks.
06:23This 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.
06:57But 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.
07:22And 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,
07:57which is a little bit earlier, all of these others, if you look at the Apostles,
08:01they all look quite similar, they're all structured, they'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,
08:53they're all doing something a little bit different.
08:56It's extremely dynamic and it seems to be quite spontaneous and quite explosive.
09:02Christ is very calm in the middle and all of the others are gesturing
09:06or the shock of Christ saying, one 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,
09:36who 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,
09:50one of you is going to betray me.
09:58He's got a knife in his hand
10:00and you might imagine that he's about to get up and attack
10:04whoever the betrayer would be.
10:07And that betrayer, who unbeknownst to St. Peter,
10:12would be shrinking into his seat right next to him.
10:18One of the most intriguing and I think brilliantly dramatic choices
10:23that Leonardo makes is his placement of Judas.
10:27The vast majority portrayals of the Last Supper,
10:30Judas is on this side of the table.
10:33It's a way of distinguishing him.
10:35It'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
10:45and we are caught up in the question mark
10:47because we too are forced to try and identify
10:53who the betrayer might be.
10:55It's not made obvious to us.
10:56Judas is the key to this painting
10:58because 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,
11:08he's put him to Christ's right hand.
11:10The right hand of Christ is the place of honour.
11:13It's the most important.
11:14Well, actually, John is the one that's right next to Christ,
11:16but just too long from him, we find Judas.
11:21So the fear and the distrust and the betrayal
11:24comes from within the group
11:26and that changes the psychology of the 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
11:42and Christ is also reaching to that bowl.
11:44And in the Bible, we are told
11:46that he who dips his hand in the bowl will betray me.
11:50And you can see him reaching forward
11:52and then there's a sense of
11:54maybe I'm not going to do it after all.
11:56And then Christ reaching forward
11:58but 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
12:07and 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?
12:18If you knock over the salt.
12:19And that superstition existed at that period as well.
12:24So there are all these clues to his identity.
12:27But 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,
12:36the very bribe he received to betray Jesus.
12:40I think the third group is perhaps the most powerful,
12:44for me the most beautiful.
12:46You have St. Thomas,
12:48who is an intriguing jester.
12:50He's pointing up to this guy
12:53as if to challenge the authority of God,
12:57as if to question how can God let this happen.
13:01And then next to him, the figure of James,
13:03who is literally throwing his arms out.
13:06It's such an expressive jester,
13:08he cannot believe what he's hearing.
13:12These 13 figures aren't placed at random.
13:16They're part of a meticulously planned composition.
13:20Leonardo used geometry and mathematical precision
13:23to 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,
13:37that 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
13:47by focusing on Christ.
13:49We have to go back to perspective on this
13:51for the composition.
13:53The perspective is really, really important.
13:56It 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
14:26bringing 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,
14:42if you look from Christ's head alongside either arm.
14:45So you have triangles, you have squares, you have pentagons.
14:52Now I'm going to talk about a part of the painting
14:55that we don't see so often
14:57or we don't think about so often
14:59because 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
15:09of Ludovico Sforza, the man who paid for the work.
15:13And if you take the line of that lunette
15:15and you continue it down,
15:17you very much have an implied circle.
15:21Why would he do that?
15:25Well, there was a belief
15:26that various geometrical shapes had divine meaning.
15:30So the equilateral triangle is symbolic of the Trinity.
15:33The pentagon is symbolic of the five wounds of Christ.
15:39The circle, which is implied by the lunette above the painting,
15:44is 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
16:04that has many, many conspiracy theories.
16:09So I'm not going to talk about all of them
16:11but I'll talk about the most important one
16:13and that is the idea that Mary Magdalene is in this painting,
16:17that 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
16:35going right back to the 10th century
16:37where John is young.
16:38He's Christ's favourite disciple.
16:40He's young and therefore he doesn't have a beard.
16:44It's a way of people recognising straight away
16:47the concept of somebody.
16:50And quite often during the Renaissance,
16:52if you look at other Leonardo paintings
16:53or paintings by other Renaissance masters,
16:56the younger boys tended to be feminised
16:58and it's the idea of idealised beauty.
17:02So the idea that this is a woman in the painting
17:05is absolute nonsense.
17:08There are lots of ideas and suggestions
17:12as to, you know, is the figure of John the Evangelist
17:16actually Mary Magdalene.
17:17There are a lot of theories which are quite fanciful
17:19but I think that Leonardo made this painting
17:23with various levels of meaning and symbolism attached,
17:27some of which have been unravelled,
17:29some of which perhaps are yet to be unravelled.
17:32From the missing chalice to the hidden symbolism,
17:36The Last Supper is shrouded in mystery.
17:40It invites countless questions and theories,
17:43a fascination that has helped preserve
17:46its 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
17:56the most important thing about this painting
17:58is 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
18:04are just 20th century nonsense.
18:13I think it's also quite interesting
18:15to touch upon the possibility
18:18that there is a musical connection in this painting.
18:22Leonardo da Vinci's activities as a musician
18:26are less well recorded
18:28but what is quite interesting
18:29is that he seems perhaps to have come
18:32to the Swarza court in Milan in his capacity
18:35both as a painter and a musician.
18:40We know that he wrote music
18:42although sadly none of that music has come down to us.
18:45So the idea that he might be bringing musical theory
18:48into his paintings is not so remote as we might imagine.
18:52And there's a purposely drawing for this painting
18:54which is in the Royal Collection
18:56which has a series of numbers to one side
19:00which seem to relate to musical ratios
19:03or musical proportions
19:05such as the octave, fourths and fifths.
19:08Now if you look at these tapestries
19:10on either side of the wall
19:12I know they look like huge doors
19:13huge cavernous doors
19:14but originally these were tapestries
19:17very very much of the painting sadly has been lost
19:20and their relation
19:22their proportion to one another
19:23seems to be structured
19:26according to musical proportions
19:29fourths and fifths and octaves.
19:32Leonardo talks about correlation
19:33between visual proportions and ratios
19:36and musical ratios in his writings
19:39so I don't think it would come as any surprise
19:41to think that he would be doing this
19:43in a work of art as well.
19:47Despite its brilliance
19:48The Last Supper has suffered greatly over the centuries
19:52environmental damage
19:53and the fragile technique Leonardo used
19:56has left the painting faded and flaking.
20:00So normally with a painting like this
20:02it would have been done on fresh plaster
20:04hence the term fresco meaning fresh in Italian
20:06so it would have been done on plaster
20:08wet plaster
20:09whereas he does this on dry plaster
20:11and that's going to cause a huge huge problem
20:14because this was in the dining room
20:16of the refectory
20:17and behind this specific painting
20:20was the kitchen
20:22and the kitchen is going to cause damp
20:24so 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
20:32The Last Supper
20:33the painting began to flake and deteriorate
20:36and yet despite its fragile state
20:39The Last Supper has endured
20:41as a deeply spiritual masterpiece
20:44transcending the damage and decay.
20:48I'm also very moved
20:49when we consider the history of the painting
20:51because it has suffered so much
20:53with the vicissitudes of time
20:54and damage
20:56and botched restoration attempts
20:58and bombing during the second world war
21:00just extraordinary that it has survived
21:02so I think it's a very moving experience.
21:05But thanks to the tireless dedication
21:07of modern restorers
21:09most notably Pinin Brambilla Barcelon
21:12who spent over 20 years
21:13carefully preserving what remained
21:15this masterpiece still stands
21:18as a powerful window into Leonardo's vision.
21:22So as you reflect on its beauty
21:24remember that what we see today
21:27is a testament not only to the artist
21:29but to those who fought
21:31to keep his work alive.
21:32This is a painting
21:34that has been restored so many times
21:36it was nearly destroyed
21:37during World War II.
21:39Experts estimate
21:41that only about 20 to 25%
21:43of this painting
21:44is actually by Leonardo.
21:49But the most important thing
21:51is that 25% of Leonardo
21:53is better than 100%
21:55of most other artists
21:57and that's the great thing
21:58about this painting.
22:00Although Leonardo never painted
22:03another mural again
22:04it was this painting
22:05that forever immortalized his genius.
22:08A timeless symbol of faith
22:10human connection
22:11and the profound spirit
22:13that continues to inspire
22:14all who encounter
22:16The Last Supper.
22:28legend of the import
22:29he is now
22:31he is now
22:32He
Comments