DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: We're
in Santa Maria della Grazie, in Milan, looking
at Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. DR. BETH HARRIS: And we're in
the room where the monks would eat, their refectory,
and so several times a day, the monks
would come in there and eat silently, and
be able to look up at Leonardo's Last Supper. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: It's
an ideal place, of course, for this particular subject. And not an uncommon one. DR. BETH HARRIS: So let's
talk about the story. At the last supper,
Christ says, "One of you will betray me," to
his twelve apostles. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And one of
the ways that this painting is often read is as a
reaction to that moment. That is, this is
not the moment when Christ utters that,
but the moment after, when the reaction takes place. These are his closest followers. And so this is
terribly shocking. And so what we see is
this incredible set of reactions from the
apostles around the table. DR. BETH HARRIS:
So that's one way we can understand the
fresco, but there's another aspect of the narrative. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Which is, in
some ways, even more important. Christ, you can see, is reaching
towards both a glass of wine and towards bread. And this is the institution
of the sacrament. DR. BETH HARRIS: The
sacrament of the Eucharist, we might know it as Holy
Communion, where Christ says, "Take this bread,
for this is my body. Take this wine, for
this is my blood. And remember me." And you can see
that he reaches out toward the bread and the wine. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: But
what's interesting is that Christ's hand
is widely spread. So it seems as if he's
reaching towards the wine, but at the same time, he's
reaching toward a bowl. And at the same moment,
Judas is reaching towards that same bowl. DR. BETH HARRIS:
Judas is the one who's going to betray Christ. He's been paid 30 pieces
of silver by the Romans. And you can see, he's
grasped that bag of silver in his right hand, as he
pulls away from Christ, his face cast in shadow. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: But he's
pulling away at the same time that he's still reaching
out to the bowl. And that's one of the ways
that Christ identifies who will betray him,
the person who shares, who dips with him in that bowl. It's interesting, because
the history of the art history about this
painting is really about scholars arguing
about what moment this is. DR. BETH HARRIS: But I think
there are all of these moments here. And the apostles
could, just as easily, be understood as reacting to
Christ's words, "one of you will betray me" as they could to
Christ saying, "Take the bread, for this is my body and take
the wine, for this is my blood." So, Leonard tells us several
moments in this story, and at the same time,
gives us a sense of the divine, eternal
importance of this story. We would never mistake this
for 13 people having dinner. We know this is the last supper. We know that this is
an important moment, without any of the obvious
symbols of the divine that we would have in the early
Renaissance, like the halo. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: The
figures, themselves, are monumental in this space,
and too crowded for that table, creating a kind of
energy, a kind of chaos, that surrounds the
perfection, the solemnity, the geometry of Christ. DR. BETH HARRIS: That's right. Christ forms an
equilateral triangle. His head is in the
center of a circle. The window that frames
his head reads as a halo. There's that calm center. And then, human beings
with all of their faults, and fears, and worries,
around that divine center. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: This
is Leonardo da Vinci, who is thinking about mathematics,
he's thinking about science, he's thinking about
the integration of all of these things. DR. BETH HARRIS: If
we look at earlier images of the last
supper, there's lots of room at
the table, there's lots of decorations in the room. What Leonardo does is
he simplifies everything and focuses us on those
figures and their gestures. And by making it so there's
no room behind the table, the figures take
up so much space, it's separating our
world from the world of Christ and the apostles. There's no way for us
to enter that space. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
In fact, there's no way for them to
move into our space. There really is
this demarcation. DR. BETH HARRIS: In versions of
the Last Supper that Leonardo would have seen
in Florence, Judas is sitting on the opposite
side of the table. And by putting Judas
with the other apostles, he does use the table as a
barrier between our world and the world of the apostles. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: Let's look at
those faces for just a moment. Christ is so serene, his eyes
are down, one hand is up, one hand is down. To his right is
a group of three, and there is Judas, who's
facing away from us in shadow. His neck is turned,
reminding us that night he will hang himself. Now as he pulls away, Saint
Peter, Christ's protector, rushes in. He's got a knife that he
holds around his back. And he comes in, seeming
to say almost, who is it? I need to defend you. DR. BETH HARRIS:
The third figure in that group with
Judas and Peter would be Saint
John, who looks very resigned and closes his eyes. And that's the tradition in
paintings of the Last Supper. My favorite three figures are
the figures on the far right. Leonardo was very
interested in using the body to reveal the soul, to
reveal one's internal nature. But Leonardo's creating
these four groups of three, that idea of
knitting the figures together, overlapping them
with one another, creating all this drama. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: And
creating tensions and contrast between the emotional
responses of all these figures. There's that incredible grouping
of Thomas pointing upward. DR. BETH HARRIS:
As if to say, is this something that
is ordained by God? Is this God's plan, that
one of us should betray you? DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: But of
course, that finger also foreshadows him actually
proving Christ's resurrection, by plunging that finger
into Christ's wound. And then we have Phillip
and James the Major. And they're in opposition,
one throwing his arms out, one bringing his hands together. DR. BETH HARRIS: And if we were
to compare this with earlier Last Suppers, we
would see the way that the figures remained very
separate from one another. And here, that idea of
unified composition, which is so characteristic of
the High Renaissance. But what I sense here,
more than anything, is the divinity of Christ,
here, in the center. His calm. The way that all of
those perspective lines bringing us toward him. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
It's interesting, because that perspective
that the artist is rendering is slightly at odds with the
perspective, as we see it, from down here on the floor. That is, we would need to
be close to Christ's level to see this painting in a
perspective correct manner. And it's interesting. In a sense, it elevates us,
as we look at this painting. DR. BETH HARRIS: Right,
we would have to be, what, about 10 or 15
feet off the floor to have the perspective
work exactly perfectly. So we have this divine
presence in the center, indicated in all of
these different ways. Now, keep in mind, we're not
saying this the way that people would have seen it, in 1498. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: The painting
is in terrible condition, in part because
Leonardo experimented with a combination of
oil paint and tempera, in an environment where fresco
would be traditionally used. And the painting began
to deteriorate soon after it was completed. DR. BETH HARRIS: Right,
unlike a traditional fresco, which is painted on
wet plaster, Leonardo painted on dry plaster. And the paint never really
adhered to the wall. So luckily for us, The Last
Supper has been conserved. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
And so in some ways, this is a perfect representation
of the High Renaissance. It is finding a way of creating
a sense of the eternal, a sense of the perfect, but
within the chaos that is the human experience. DR. BETH HARRIS: That's right. Uniting the earthly
and the divine.