< The Table of the Last Supper
My main source when working on this triptych has been the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, measuring 460 x 880 cm (1495 – 1498), in the refectory of the Dominican convent Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Although the original construction shows the table at eye level, the raised horizon line of the perspective creates a glow of mystery around the scene. In addition to the distance of the viewer from the painting, the visibility of the details is really poor due to the decay caused by the use of the technique of tempera applied to the wall on dry preparatory ground used by Leonardo.
After analysing several copies of Leonardo’s Last Supper, I studied the one known as the Cenacolo del Certosa di Pavia, made during his lifetime. This painting that has been in the Collection of the Royal Academy of Arts in London since 1821, has nowadays the dimension of 302 x 785 cm, because during the 18th century the upper third of the painting was cut off and the width was reduced.
The current format of this canvas persuaded me to lengthen the horizontal proportion of my painting, getting closer to what could have been a table about 6 meters long in Leonardo’s mural. I painted a close-up of the table in full size, imagining it as an orthogonal projection on a horizontal plane. Working in the spirit of the original proportions, I constructed the ensemble as a long triptych with a layout of 3x (80 x 200 cm).
In May 2020, when starting this work on paper, I first revisited the book by Daniel Arasse on Leonardo da Vinci (Hazan, 2011). Coming back to this project in 2023, I consulted other notes and documents made available by the RA curators, about the commission circumstances, the style and attributions of this 16th century copy belonging to the RA Collection. Taking these conversations further, I was thrilled to discover the visual documents recording in 1999 the extraordinary restoration results of Leonardo’s masterpiece conducted for over twenty years by the restorer Pinin Brambilla Barcilon.
Stefania Kenley text (updated 16.01.2024) paintings (mai 2020)
stefania kenley 