Sunday, April 4, 2010

Chapter 20 - Leonardo Da Vinci


Many of the western’s most legendary artists changed not only the direction of Western art but established the modern concept of the artists. Leonardo Da Vinci was trained in a traditional shop; apprenticed as a youth to a master, as he learned how to draw and how to copy. (Cole and Gealt, 138). According to Cole and Gealt, “Learning style and technique through imitation was a basic principle of the Western art until the19th century (138).
Innovation was discouraged in favor of tradition in the workshops, where the young Leonardo and many others learned their craft (138). “Yet when they emerged from their training, these great artists channeled what they had learned into something wholly original, personal, and largely inimitable” (139).
Leonardo’s most famous painting, Last Supper, in Milan, is tragically in ruin. Completed in about 1495-98, Leonardo used a novel technique, but the medium, an experimental variation of the fresco technique, soon deteriated, ‘leaving the present work a shadow of the original masterpiece’ (141).
The artwork is traditional in that it was popular for refectories, a place where monks gathered to take their meals and hear the scriptures read (141). Christ was always shown at the center of the table with the apostles divided into groups on either side, accept for Judas, who was traditionally isolated across the table (141).
According to Stokstad,” Leonardo incorporated a medieval tradition of numerical symbolism” (662).
The seated the apostles in groups of three. He also eliminated another symbolic element, the halo and substituted the natural light from a triple window framing Jesus’s head.
He painted on dry intonaco- a thin layer of smooth plaster with oil and tempura paint; for which the formula is unknown. The result was “disastrous” (663). The Last Supper represents gravity, balance, and order; it is a symbolic evocation of both Jesus’s coming sacrifice for the salvation of humankind and the institution of the ritual of Mass (662). Stokstad states the work’s qualities of stability, calm and timelessness, coupled with the established Renaissance forms modeled after those of classical sculpture, characterize the art of the Renaissance at the beginning of the sixteenth century” (664).
Since the seventeenth century, the work has barely survived, despite many attempts to halt its deterioration and restore its original appearance.

2 comments:

  1. I really love this engraving. I am a huge fan of Martin Schongauer, and Albrecht Druer really has a similar style to Schongauer. Thanks for the great detail!

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  2. What I like about Da vinci's last supper is the symbolism as well as the complex emotions. Everyone has a slightly different expression.

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