I have in my possession a manuscript critique on the celebrated picture of
The Last Supper by Lionardo da Vinci, written many years ago by a deceased
academician; in which the writer has called in question the _point of time_
usually supposed to have been selected by the celebrated Italian painter.
The criticisms are chiefly founded on the copy by Marco Oggioni, now in the
possession of the Royal Academy of Arts.
Uniform tradition has assumed that the moment of action is that in which
the Saviour announces the treachery of one of his disciples "Dico vobis
quia unus vestrum me traditurus est." Matth. xxvi. 21., Joan. xiii. 21.,
Vulgate edit.; and most of the admirers of this great work have not failed
to find in it decisive proofs of the intention of the painter to represent
that exact point of time. {525}
The author of the manuscript enters into a very detailed examination of the
several groups of figures which compose the picture, and of the expression
of the heads; and he confesses his inability to find in them anything
decisively indicating the period supposed to be chosen. He remarks that
nine at least of the persons, including the principal one, are evidently
engaged in animated conversation; that instead of that concentrated
attention which the announcement might be supposed to generate, there
appears to be great variety of expressions and of action; and that neither
surprise nor indignation are so generally prominent, as might have been
expected. He inclines to think that the studied diversity of expression,
and the varied attitudes and gestures of the assembled party, are to be
regarded as proofs of the artist's efforts to produce a powerful and
harmonious composition, rather than a natural and truthful representation
of any particular moment of the transaction depicted by him.
The work in question is now so generally accessible through the medium of
accurate engravings, that any one may easily exercise his own judgment on
the matter, and decide for himself whether the criticism be well founded.
It must be borne in mind that the subject had long been a familiar
decoration of conventual refectories before the time when Lionardo brought
his profound knowledge of external human nature, and his unsurpassed powers
of executive art, to bear on a subject which had before been treated in the
dry, conventional, inanimate manner of the Middle Ages. The leading
features of the traditional picture are retained: the long table, the linen
cloth, the one-sided arrangement of the figures, the classic drapery, and
the general form and design of the apartment, are all to be found in the
earlier works; and must have been considered, by observers in general, far
more essential to the correct delineation of the scene than any adherence
to the exact description of it in any one of the Evangelists. But as the
subject was usually introduced into refectories for the edification of the
brethren assembled with their superior at their own meals, it does not seem
likely that the treachery of Judas should have been intended to be the
prominent action of the picture. It was a memorial of the institution of
the Eucharist, although the Christ was not represented as dispensing either
bread or wine. In such a case, if any particular point of time was ever
contemplated by the artist, he might judiciously and appropriately select
the moment when the Saviour was announcing, in mysterious words, the close
of his mission--as in St. Matthew and St. Mark; or was teaching them a
lesson of humility when the spirit of rivalry and strife had disclosed
itself among them--as we find in St. Luke and St. John.
It is not perhaps generally known that the statutes of Queen's College,
Oxford, prescribe the order of sitting at the common table in manner which
evidently refers to the _coenaculum_ of the old church painters.