[see notes at bottom]
The Last Supper was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci, a noted Italian artist; and the time engaged for its completion was seven years. The figures representing the twelve Apostles and Christ himself were painted from living persons. The life-model for the painting of the figure of Jesus was chosen first.
When it was decided that Da Vinci would paint this great picture, hundreds and hundreds of young men were carefully viewed in an endeavor to find a face and personality exhibiting innocence and beauty, free from the scars and signs of dissipation caused by sin.
Finally, after weeks of laborious searching, a young man nineteen years of age was selected as a model for the portrayal of Christ. For six months, DaVinci worked on the production of this leading character of his famous painting. During the next six years, Da Vinci continued his labors on this sublime work of art. One by one fitting persons were chosen to represent each of the eleven Apostles; space being left for the painting of the figure representing Judas Iscariot as the final task of this masterpiece. This was the Apostle, you remember, who betrayed his Lord for thirty pieces of silver, worth in our present day, currency of $16.96.
For weeks, Da Vinci searched for a man with a hard callous face, with a countenance marked by scars of avarice, deceit, hypocrisy, and crime; a face that would delineate a character who would betray his best friend.
After many discouraging experiences in searching for the type of person required to represent Judas, word came to Da Vinci that a man whose appearance fully met his requirements had been found in a dungeon in Rome, sentenced to die for a life of crime and murder. Da Vinci made the trip to Rome at once, and this man was brought out from his imprisonment in the dungeon and led out into the light of the sun. Here Da Vinci saw before him a dark, swarthy man; his long, shaggy and unkempt hair sprawled over his face, which betrayed a character of viciousness and complete ruin. At last, the famous painter had found the person he wanted to represent the character of Judas in his painting. By special permission from the king, this man was carried to Milan where the picture was being painted; and for months he sat before DaVinci at appointed hours each day as the gifted artist diligently continued his task of transmitting to his painting this base character in the picture representing the traitor and betrayer of our savior. As he finished his last stroke, he turned to the guards and said, “I have finished. You may take the prisoner away.” As the guards were leading their prisoner away, he suddenly broke loose from their control and rushed up to Da Vinci, crying as he did so, “O, DaVinci, look at me! Do you not know who I am?”
Da Vinci, with the trained eyes of a great character student, carefully scrutinized the man upon whose face he had constantly gazed for six months and replied, “No, I have never seen you in my life until you were brought before me out of the dungeon in Rome.” Then, lifting his eyes toward heaven, the prisoner said,”Oh, God, have I fallen so low?” Then turning his face to the painter he cried, “Leonardo DaVinci! Look at me again for I am the same man you painted just seven years ago as the figure of Christ.”
This is the true story of the painting of The Last Supper that teaches so strongly the lesson of the effects of right or wrong thinking on the life of an individual. Here was a young man whose character was so pure, unspoiled by the sins of the world that he presented a countenance of innocence and beauty fit to be used for the painting of a representation of Christ. But within seven years, following the thoughts of sin and a life of crime, he was changed into a perfect picture of the most traitorous character ever known in the history of the world.
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Holwick – I researched this illustration on the internet and was able to find references to Da Vinci’s search for models (article below), but not the episode about Judas. For a contemporary account of the Judas image, see at bottom.
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Leonardo Da Vinci’s Painting “Last Supper”
April 4, 1991
In 1495, at the request of Lodovico Sforza, Leonardo da Vinci began the Last Supper on the wall of the refectory (dining hall) in the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. The painting is so prodigious, both in fact and in its influence, so familiar throughout the Western world, that discussing it is like saying a few words about the Atlantic Ocean.
The faces in the painting, with the exception of Christ’s, are reportedly those of actual people Leonardo sought out in the near Milan. To locate an appropriate Judas, Leonardo spent so much time wandering through the haunts of Milanese criminals that the prior (administrator) of Santa Maria delle Grazie complained to Sforza of his “laziness”. To this, Leonardo replied that he was indeed having difficulty finding Judas; but if pressed, he could use the head of the prior, which would do very nicely.
In addition to using living models for the disciples, Leonardo surrounded them with objects then in everyday use … in the painting, the tablecloth, knives, forks, glassware, and china were all similar to those of the monks themselves. The effect of the painting, at least as it appeared at the time of its completion in 1498, must have been an overwhelming reversal of reality and illusion: the actual room became an extension of the picture.
According to Leonardo da Vinci, “Painted figures ought to be done in such a way that those who see them will be able to easily recognize from their attitudes the thoughts of their minds”. Leonardo’s Last Supper … exemplifies his maxim that figures should express emotional and psychological realism. The stable and calm figure of Christ, who is both on the axis and the focal point of the scientific perspective construction, forms a triangle, symbolic of the Trinity. Christ’s followers are composed in four groups of three apostles each.
The agitated movement of the apostles reveals their psychological turmoil in reaction to Christ’s declaration, “I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me” (Matt. 26:21). In earlier Last Supper paintings, Judas had been shown on our side of the table, removed from the space occupied by Christ and his apostles. Leonardo, however, kept Judas with his fellow apostles. The fourth figure from the left, he is shown recoiling from Christ. Judas is the only figure whose face is lost in shadow, a subtle indication that he is lost from the light of Christ. The hands of Christ are directed toward the bread and wine on the table, suggesting the institution of the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper.
Material taken from:
“The World of Leonardo 1452-1519,” by Robert Wallace
“Art Past, Art Present,” by David G. Wilkins and Bernard Schultz
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http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/vasari1.html
Giorgio Vasari: Life of Leonardo da Vinci, 1550
He also painted in Milan, for the Friars of S. Dominic, at S. Maria dell Grazie, a Last Supper, a most beautiful and marvellous thing; and to the heads of the Apostles he gave such majesty and beauty, that he left the head of Christ unfinished, not believing that he was able to give it that divine air which is essential to the image of Christ. This work, remaining thus all but finished, has ever been held by the Milanese in the greatest veneration, and also by strangers as well; for Leonardo imagined and succeeded in expressing that anxiety which had seized the Apostles in wishing to know who should betray their Master. For which reason in all their faces are seen love, fear, and wrath, or rather, sorrow, at not being able to understand the meaning of Christ; which thing excites no less marvel than the sight, in contrast to it, of obstinacy, hatred, and treachery in Judas; not to mention that every least part of the work displays an incredible diligence, seeing that even in the tablecloth the texture of the stuff is counterfeited in such a manner that linen itself could not seem more real.
It is said that the Prior of that place kept pressing Leonardo, in a most importunate manner, to finish the work; for it seemed strange to him to see Leonardo sometimes stand half a day at a time, lost in contemplation, and he would have like him to go on like the labourers hoeing in his garden, without ever stopping his brush. And not content with this, he complained of it to the Duke, and that so warmly, that he was constrained to send for Leonardo and delicately urged him to work, contriving nevertheless to show him that he was doing all this because of the importunity of the Prior. Leonardo, knowing that the intellect of that Prince was acute and discerning, was pleased to discourse at large with the Duke on the subject, a thing which he had never done with the Prior: and he reasoned much with him about art, and made him understand that men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most wh en they work the least, seeking out inventions with the mind, and forming those perfect ideas which the hands afterwards express and reproduce from the images already conceived in the brain. And he added that two heads were still wanting for him to paint; that of Christ, which he did not wish to seek on earth; and he could not think that it was possible to conceive in the imagination that beauty and heavenly grace which should be the mark of God incarnate. Next, there was wanting that of Judas, which was also troubling him, not thinking himself capable of imagining features that should represent the countenance of him who, after so many benefits received, had a mind so cruel as to resolve to betray his Lord, the Creator of the world. However, he would seek out a model for the latter; but if in the end he could not find a better, he should not want that of the importunate and tactless Prior. This thing moved the Duke wondrously to laughter, and he said that Leonardo had a thousand reasons on his side. And so the poor Prior, in confusion, confined himself to urging on the work in the garden, and left Leonardo in peace, who finished only the head of Judas, which seems the very embodiment of treachery and inhumanity; but that of Christ, as has been said, remained unfinished.
See also http://www.truthorfiction.com/lastsupper/ which disputes that Da Vinci used the same model for Jesus and Judas.
[see also HolwickID #30203]