I have a TRUE interesting story about DaVinci's Last Supper. No DaVinci Code crap, read on:?

Question

The models for all of the people in the fresca (painting done on a wall) of the Last Supper were all people that were carefully chosen by DaVinci himself over a seven year period. The first person, and center piece for the painting, was Jesus Christ. DaVinci interviewed several people for the modeling job, and finally found a man he believed to be the perfect picture of innocence and painted him as the Jesus. Toward the end of the seven years he had every one of the disciples except for one: Judas. He had yet to find someone who emobodied deceit and evil enough for him, until he heard about a man to be executed for crimes against humanity in Rome. He made his way to Rome and found the man to be killed, and realized that he was perfect for his painting. DaVinci pleaded to let the man be painted before his execution, and the request was granted, but the man was to be executed immeadiatly after the painting was completed. For three weeks, DaVinci painted his Judas

under the order of strict silence during the painting. When the final day was done and the man led away, he broke free of the soldier and ran toward DaVinci and asked him, "Don't you recognize me?"

"Sir I have never seen you before in my life, untill three weeks ago." DaVinci said with disgust.

"Oh, how I have fallen." The man cried,"When only seven years ago you painted me as Jesus."

Look at the face of Jesus and the face of Judas in the Last Supper. Judas wears green and is one Jesus's left side, with a scowl on his face. the hair is different and expression is different as well, but the face is identical.

Crazy, huh?

Lost and Found,

I have read it in multiple art refrences as part of the stories surrounding the painting's history. Check out wikipedia.com for a picture of the painting to see for yourself.

No real lesson here, folks, just an interesting tale.

Answer 1

ya thats interesting. star* for you.

Answer 2

This is an urban legend, as can be documented with a quick visit to Snopes. For starters, the 7 years is far too long, as the freso was painted in less time than that:

'Documentary evidence indicates he began "The Last Supper" in 1495 and was finished with it by 1498. (At the outside, Da Vinci would had to have completed his work by the end of 1499; that year he fled Milan ahead of the invading French and didn't return to the city until 1506.) Other details presented here are woefully wrong as well: We have no records of whom Leonardo used as models for the figures in "The Last Supper," but he was painting on a wall, undoubtedly from sketches, so in no case would he have had models sitting in a "studio" for "days" while he "painted on canvas."

'This tale is simply a Christian religious allegory warning of the inner spiritual decay (as exemplified by an outer physical decay) that awaits those who spurn Jesus Christ. As with many other examples of glurge, the writer has housed his message within a historical framework to lend it additional impact, thereby achieving exactly the opposite of what he intended: readers now focus on the literal truth of the allegory's details rather than its message.'

The Snopes entry goes on to quote from a poem that tells the same fictional story.

Answer 3

It makes for a pleasantly romantic myth about the composition of The Last Supper, but that is all this supposedly 'true' story is. It is a mish mash of details plucked from Varsari's 1568 edition of ''Lives of the Artists" (and which is still published by Penguin Classics and is, therefore, readily available to anyone interested enough to read it) and written considerably after Da Vinci's death in 1519. By the time Varsari came to write his work, the myth of Leonardo Da Vinci was well established and not all of Varsari's anecdotes about Da Vinci are accurate. Lilkewise with his biographies of other artists such as Ugolino, Spinelli or da Ponte, which are in the same work.

There is, in fact, no historical evidence to support the story of the subject used for Judas and Jesus in the painting. True, Da Vinci did record his walks as he studied heads and faces for the various figures in the painting (as he did for many other works and for his sketch books) but the idea that the model for Jesus was later a criminal sketched for the figure of Judas is without any foundation and, in fact, doesn't really tally with Da Vinci's own recorded notes about the composition of this painting.

Judas Iscariot, who is 5th from the left-hand side of the painting and shown clutching a bag of money, is facing away from the viewer, making it rather difficult to assert that the face of this model is identical to that of the figure of Jesus. the actual painting in the convent of Santa Maria della Grazie is now in such poor condition that it is impossible to see any of the figures with any real clarity or certainty. The usual source for this charming but unreliable fiction that is often paraded around in the disguise of history is a 17th century copy of The Last Supper held in the Abbey of Tongerlo, Belgium. This creates a number of potential discrepancies as one is reliant on the accuracy of the copy itself as an accurate guide to the faces in Da Vinci's painting. The problem of the accuracy of simulacra should, I hope, speak for itself.

At the end of the day, we have an interesting story, but little more. Even the article on Wikipedia about The Last Supper says "The story often goes that the innocent-looking young man, a baker, posed at nineteen for Jesus. Some years later Leonardo discovered a hard-bitten criminal as the model for Judas, not realizing he was the same man. There is no evidence that Leonardo used the same model for both figures and the story usually overestimates the time it took Leonardo to finish the mural.[1]". While Wikipedia is not exactly the arbiter of good scholarly writing, in this instance it has got it right.

Answer 4

Beautiful. "Had Davinci been an atheist, Might the Last Supper have looked like this?" Perhaps!

Answer 5

I watched a show on the History Channel that gave the same information.. I found it very interesting....

Answer 6

You mean we can act like Jesus at one point and like Judas at another? What's new about that?

Answer 7

Urban legend.

Answer 8

That's cool

Answer 9

What were your references, again?