The less suffer by Leonardo Da Vinci when it was 1st shown in 1499. 00 they created shock waves through italy and beyond changing the world of art for ever but a 20 year restoration effort has revealed the awful truth of the original fresco only some 20 percent is still visible simply put we can no longer seen or understand why this painting had such a devastating impact. Or can we. This is the incredible story of a hope to close europe following a trail of clues and documents hidden for centuries that suggests that layer. At his workshop painted another last supper a huge life size kids but none other than the king of france does that painting still exist if so can it reveal the secrets of the original fresco. This is where a story starts in milan the most important fashion and business city in all of modern italy and in that sense not much has changed even in the 15th century milan was a bustling city filled with artists and musicians. Of old a city states and italy the duchy of milan was the most powerful the most exuberant and the wealthiest buy for no wonder that many kings in europe wanted to conquer it. Securely because the man in charge the juke named little because forbes was a tyrant who had seized power in 14 he was than any other such rulers he was desperate to cloak his the legitimacy with the splendor of a renaissance school. Educated many projects a monastery complex called it just tours of the pov via a new Church Building right here in milan called the sometime out he had that i cannot see but the biggest project of all was this massive cathedral deliberately designed to be the biggest Church Building in all of italy so naturally this city was a magnet for Young Artists and sculptors from all over the region. But while a lot of this artist wasnt from lombardy he was from florence the most exciting city in all of italy a wellspring of the renaissance. What was he doing painting at fresco in milan. Answer may be found in a small village outside of florence called vinci. Leonardo was a natural child the son of a farmers daughter katherina one day had a role in the hay with a promising young notary called 7 pm of course marys was out of the question a Bright Future awaited said pietro provided he married a wife from a prestigious family. Thats why labor nardo was never truly part of the creative circles of florence around lorenzo the major with artists like the betty dylan dial or michelangelo these were folks who wrote latin sonnets and could hold their own in fine society theyre not i was never part of that. But said piero never forgot his son and was only his ready to use his connections to help him get work but the lack of a proper education left Young Leonardo at a major disadvantage. Instead he was apprenticed to the workshop of one of the most prolific artists of florence and that i am here here leonardo learned how to mix pigments prepare panels or transfer a large fresco drawings called cartoons to a plaster wall and eventually for allowed him to paint one of the angels in his panel of the baptism of cries its obvious that leonardos angel is much more beautiful than the rather darr angel to the right painted by photo kill himself. So how did he create such lovely and jelly faces the answer by using a New Invention called oils whereas most of florence still use the flat collars of tempera paint which dries quickly leonardo had begun to experiment with pigments mixed with oils it technique 1st developed in northern europe. They advantage or i suspect tempera is that in order to create a 3 dimensional object you pretty much have to mix every single color that you put in there or crosshatch it so you get the feeling that we dont mention but with oil you didnt have that problem you can have an incredible range from black to white hall most seamlessly so this was a huge shift for for the artists and the renaissance. And there is a classically trained artist who painted a live size re creation of the Sistine Chapel for the Motion Picture angels and the. And how were these oils made well they were ground up pigments that could be anything from bones through dry parsley to accost famous ultra in blue that came from afghanistan that was so expensive that it cost more than actual gold in its own weight my god more than gold yes it did. The 15th century to quote red cento was a an exciting time to be in florence it was a time of rebirth the renaissance the revival of the ancient world and the arts science and literature and in engineering here for example philippo brunelleschi used roman engineering to create this vast dome over the dew moment the cathedral of florence while burlesque he was taking measurements of ancient temples and rome he had discovered that when you draw a street or a building all the horizontal lines seem to converge to a Common Center what today we call the vanishing point. Rule lasky had discovered the laws of linear perspective it revolutionized the renaissance art suddenly painters could create an illusion of 3 dimensional space is if the image they painted was a window on another world. You know for us its almost impossible to imagine the impact of this innovation why because today we are surrounded by simulated images a form of billboards Television Cinema they have conditioned our brain to interpret flat images as 3 dimensional reality but in the middle ages men and women never had that experience before and so there must have been utterly amazed. By a painting like this one. The crucifixion by massager the 1st fresco in history to use linear perspective. People in those days most of us some form of magic to see space weather was only a flat wall. There no no was also trained in the magic of linear perspective in the workshop of his mass of a rocket and he too was amazed by the possibilities but as he began his 1st major painting they are not i realized that linear perspective had one major drawback. It tended to see by fall the figures and inhibit their expressive power in many paintings the figures became like puppets fixed on a rigid grid 10 years later leonardo would write how to give you figures are pleasing air. Look about you. When you see a beautiful face remember its features and fix them in your mind. So what later naruto is saying is dont let geometry deprive your characters of feelings of emotions of psychological drama and the 1st bold attempt to do just that is a painting that hangs right here in the you feeds it called the adoration of the magic. Unfortunately the monks who commissioned the panel werent interested in moving the boundaries of italian art they simply wanted a pretty picture of the native any that people could recognize and worship. And so the work was stopped and the painting remained unfinished it would take nearly 2 decades before labor nardo good realize his great vision he talked about wanting to create his work of fame you can see but unless these work of fame you can see dotted telos works of fame and he wanted to create his own and so his destiny he felt he lay with a large a large court with a grand patron and a Single Person who was going to be writing the checks and that happened to be up to the most powerful man in italy me the 14 eighties and for the ninetys was the duke of milan lot of ecos fortson and so thats why he went north in 1482 to begin working for a summit was in effect the prince and not just a group of monks thats why a layman are decided to turn his back on the forums and thats why he came here in milan filled with ambition not as an artist but as an engineer a military engineer he even prepared and impressive pictures for the job but catalogued all of us military talents. Methods for destroying every fortress were strong and is built on a rock. I can also design different types of can which we heard and still needs the ball like a hail storm. Leonardos hopes came to light it took several years for a joke little vico to finally noticed the florentine artist but the project he gave him a huge equestrian statue ended in failure the only thing that remains of this massive project are his studies. Living art or was ready to tackle the greatest most m. B. Composition of his young career a series of 13 live size portraits of men seated at a table for a wall in milan. How did the last supper project come about and who asked leonardo to pain it. This may come as a surprise but you really dont know what we do know is that the jukes faults i tended to favor only grown artists like giovanna dont want to follow that may not have been particularly in magic a tip but they delivered their work on time and on budget like this fresco of st peter bartter. What we do know is that the joke had chosen this church to become the pantheon of his dynasty. Actually it was part of a Dominican Convent and the abbot white away saw as opportunity so he asked the joke if he would build him a new or factory place to have meals for the monks complete with frescos. A refectory was usually decorated with 2 paintings a last supper and a crucifixion of christ. The last supper illustrated the institution of the eucharist whereas the crucifixion. Depicted the redemption of mankind to the suffering of jesus the 2 counterpoints of christian theology. The most important for us go destined for the south wall was the crucifixion of christ this did you gave to giovanni dum want to fun know whose family had been working in the cathedral of milan for many decades. But who was going to paint the north wall. Not of the vinci up to this point but lay it out or had done other than the failed the question project in the 2 small portraits was the production of plays and masks for the entertainment of the jucundus court was he truly going to be given this monumental fresco by laying out a was in effect a special effects man for they do you can so i guess i guess we would think of him as a sort of a combination set designer Costume Designer and special effects person for these spectaculars that lot of equal would have staged maybe a couple of times a year in the line and. That is why lew nordo was determined that with this fresco he was going to stomach the moment. And they probably would have been expecting that he would have done a last supper akin to all of those that have been done primarily in florence in tuscany sienna for the previous 200 years but of course he did something quite different that archetype showed christ breaking bread thus establishing the 1st eucharist but like a skilled film director leonardo picked a far more dramatic see the moment when jesus the claires that one of the men in the room is a traitor. That. News literally explodes from the center and hits the apostles in various poses of shock disbelief sorrow even anger the full panoply of Human Emotions is laid bare the same idea that had galvanized his adoration of the manager some 25 years earlier my in order wanted action and he also wanted the emotion and the dramatic intensity of what happened in in those seconds in jerusalem and that of course is one of the magnificent things about the painting he brings that to life and we see that and instantly i think we can understand whats happening there is that hold for techs of human drama thats right where everyone is reacting differently the rasping each other theres even credulity theres disbelief theres anger there is in the cases i like st john he just appears to be coming awake and theres being interrogated by st peter and so he does he takes each each of these 12 and gives them. Sound characteristics some you know a facial expression a hand gestures things like that in order to take us into the character but here is the great tragedy most of these beautiful expressions are no longer visible today but i sentimental is not. Often enough has to present. On a patrik upon a technique because you had an end up the town and add enough book express you the neck blocked it out was not as you want to said especially dont add on to sender and. Unlike months of fun oh who used conventional fresco techniques leonardo could not resist experimenting with his pick means to try to create the same optical effects that he had pioneered with this oil pig to use the result was catastrophic. Think the thing thats so interesting about him is that hes got different intellectual interests and so hes trying to achieve different goals with paint and hes asking different questions of them larry keith is the head of conservation and keeper at Londons National Gallery but also i think he really was in sydney and exploring nuances of tonal gradation all those kinds of distinctions that i think are really not possible to achieve in france. In 1517 an influential cardinal named luigi dada gone and his secretary on tonio debbie optus went on a tour and among others visited the convent in milan to see the last supper. As the b. Artist would write it is most excellent although it is beginning to decay either because of the band most of the wall some other form of the plaque. In the centuries since the 1st continue to deteriorate because there was a joining a kitchen so all the moisture was trapped in the wall. In the end theres really no way to know what leonardi great masterpiece looked like or is there. Long before an tonio to visit another even more distinguished visitor came to milan with an army into this was the newly crowned king of friends louis de 12 just one year after his elevation the king marched on milan to claim the city as his home. And what was the 1st thing that king louis did after he set himself up here in the Castello Sforza the answer is in the book written by lay on our toes 1st biographer george of us are. As her sorry says the king went on a visit he went to see the last supper. The kid was deeply pressed by the excellence of this picture both in composition and execution and convinced that he should take it back to his kingdom so he tried to find haka techs who could build a framework of wood and i am to safely transport the frescoed back to france with no regard for expense so much to he want to have it. But since it was painted on a war his majesty could not have visions as i. But kings arent used to being told what they cannot have and so louis decided on an even bigger gambit but for that he needed leonardo himself at least thats our theory. Even though leonardo was in milan he was wanted back in florence to finish another fresco the battle of and beyond and the whole of the 500. 00 of the lots of Data Security so he wasnt in a position to stay in milan and do whatever the king had in mind for him but then something extraordinary something that changed everything. This is the arcadia adelas thought of the feet hands of the state archives of florence with documents that go back over a 1000 years and here we found a truly remarkable letter if they left it at the elysian to call it a chase him up leslie if you didnt think india did quote dorothy she gently najar me little question to say then here is a letter from the french king himself king louis the 12th to the consul in the year the president of the French Republic to signoria asking as we have need of must. Paint the city of florence and want to make him do something by his own hand we beg you to kindly let lay out all work for us for a period of time and carry out the work we tend to do. I think its becoming clear what the french king once lived in order to do if he can have the fresh school itself he will have the next best thing a copy on canvas that he can take back to france. And whats interesting about is that the king doesnt tell the senior what he would like him to do he is very cagey about the king doesnt say how long because if our theory is correct and he wants leonardo to make a copy of the last supper that would take. A very long time indeed. The idea of such a live sized copy was not far fetched leonardo was arguably one of the 1st painters in history who used his studio to make copies of his own works for sale such as divergent of the rugs painted with his associate umbrella judith pretties. The madonna of the yarn winder possibly painted with his pupil francesco spaniel the saint and painted with his assistant mel c. And of course the mona lisa painted by his pupil and close companion solomon. There was a good reason for that here in the sometime early in of elena about had a large studio with lots of assistance but he worked very slowly and its difficult to maintain a large studio when you have a very limited output but its not so hard if you use your best assistants to make copies of your works for sale under the masters supervision of course so what happened to this copy of the last supper who painted it and as a still exist. Theres only one way to find out and that is to go to france. Today we think of paris as the worlds epicentral for our culture and fashion this is where the world calls for beauty and refinement. But in the 16th century things were very different. People sometimes forget that but in the middle ages it was actually burgundy. Which dictated french culture not just an art but also in poetry and music and then came the scourge of the black plague and the 100 years war in which joan of arc would play such an important part. So by the time lena 12th came to the throne france was a mere shadow of its former self and louis was very much aware that. He knew that french artists needed to take their cue from the italian renaissance and i think thats why he was so incredibly keen to get the last supper into french. But if thats true and if a live size copy of the last supper was actually made where did it go the answer i think maybe hidden behind these walls. This is the shot to the guy you know which once served as the residence of george dum was. Just above where. The most important memory besides that of a king with a 24 sort of funding the stuff we can underline the fact that he was us both lester king. Like his master king louis dumb ones was deeply smitten with the beauty of italian art he decided he wanted to build a chateau there was entirely in the renaissance time the 1st one in france and so he brought back scores of italian artists and masons to do just that. It took an artist lets shift to sculpt this unfolds to. Sell 25. 00 and the rest of the. Various lottery. The people of new of the beach came here. And what did he do to do lots of things to degrade yourself and one of the most beautiful of the cities and to reinforce. The fact that. One of leonardos leading pupils was working in this chateau around 1509 may be the missing piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately the chapel and much of the shuttle were destroyed in the french revolution and the term world that followed but one work that andrea painted for the shadow still exists a deposition from the cross which today hangs in duluth. Sundress ilario what we know of him and he was from a family of artists we think he was probably what you balance in a period when you know it was very fast and so he was there with him right from the beginning and around 4095 he probably came back from venice team on with his brother will suffer and which is of course exactly the moment when you know days to get into work on the last day if thats true. Then salerno must have been present as the great fresco of the last supper took shape on the refectory wall and since he was one of leonard those most talented pupils could he have been the one who painted the copy for the french king in the archives of the chateau we find a key piece of evidence an inventory of all property including printers from the 1540 s. One of these paintings is not a sin fact on twice. The film will say your feast opportunity to be a lens supper on canvas with monumental figures which is grace had brought over from alone. Could this be our 1st hard piece of evidence of a live size copy of the last supper. With monumental figures put this together with what we know that andreas alarie was in ngaio in 1509. 00 and that pieces begin to fall into place. There is little doubt that solaria was a favorite of the dumb was family and 1507. 00 even painted the portrait of george his nephew shall dumb was shara was none other than the governor of milan at that time but given the short time frame in which the copy was finished between 15071509 is likely that not only so lottery 0 but also other leonardo pupils were involved including for example jump. But heres the next question where is this campus after all if its as fair as we think it is its not something you would lose very easily. And thats why we find ourselves on the train to an. In belgium to follow the next trail of plumes. We usually think of and for because the city of rubens painter of the baroque but even in the early renaissance and for was a very important city primarily because of sort of those the major ports in the low countries. But things started to change in the early 16th century primarily as a result of the growing tensions between the problems and north and the catholic south which ultimately produced the 80 years war. This is when the Catholic Church look for every which way to defend the faith in the low countries and founded in this abbey the abbey of poland. Now what i think is so interesting is that dutch calvinism rejected all forms of religious imagery paintings sculpture even stained glass it was all torn down and destroyed i think thats why the abbot of total world decided he should get the biggest painting of christ and his apostles he could find to deter the north and give a boost to the catholic faithful in this sun. Reportedly this painting needs to exists in a small chapel on the grounds of this very calm. And. Oh my god there it is again yes but this the painting weve been looking for all these weeks. It is magnificent. So the painting was brought to bear and just in that specific moment the abbot of tongue good little has asked somebody to look after the beautiful great. Painting religious painting for the new abbey church he wrote a letter to the abbot that this the last supper of Leonardo Da Vinci was sold on the 2nd of february in 50145 so the painting was actually presented and sold. A product of living on a living just painted by leo a lot of the while it was in those days it was not that important but probably. 90 percent of the painting as a work of. Disciples pupils of genius tell me about this theory of who painted christ and seen just well. You know but i believe the. Lady who has been distorting for 22 years the original fresco in milan. She said to this is a work of a group. If you. Please disciples of forth. But she said im convinced that christ is and especially also the apostle of sin john to favorite mother all of that think she has been painted by him sent by a layer not of them yeah. Why is that its here but its a quality the quality of you look when you look at painting you see that in john this. Is very nice its exceptional quality and very very about i dey also make x. Rays of some 20 years ago. Under dade yeah. Exact same town and christ youre telling me that there are there isnt under drawing under all of the apostles except for john and cross that is painted directly on the campus that was that he says stuff. Of the x. Rays that is an astonishing discovery. So we might conclude that even though the apostles may have been painted by his pupils and looting perhaps andreas a larry that lay not to himself painted christ and since the most important figures on the last stop are pretty yeah yeah and a so its they both to painting ass a work of thats fascinating thats fantasy it is a beautiful work but is this the painting that pin louis to 12 ordered from leonardo in 1507 and andreea solara you brought to france and 1509. Fortunately the abbey has an extensive hard time going back many hundreds of years and here we find in this total eyewitness account. That 4 sayings of course hunt and jewel it is said that the painting is made after an original painted on the wall that is now a bad patch. When the king of france who conquered milan saw the painting he was very disappointed that he could not take it live in since it was painted on the wall and so he gave the order to have a copy made and thats the copy that hangs in the choir today. So what we have here is an eyewitness document from the 16th century that confirms our theory that louis did 12 ordered a copy of the last supper from Leonardo Da Vinci this painting now hangs on the wall of this beautiful abbey in belgium. But then the plot thickens once more as we saw such a large canvas could not have been painted by just one artist such a small time frame so who would have painted on the bend and various solaria the most likely candidate is an italian artist called jumpy penal for as we will discover in london he went on to make a 2nd copy. For 250 years while academy at Burlington House in london has been training for generations of british artists by drawing inspiration from the work of the great masters. So were sitting here in the library which very much relates to the training of the artists these were all what we called the kirill through artist inspire them for them to look at when did the World Academy acquire the copy of the last supper and why did they acquire so it was 821 the academy bullshit the 600 guineas which them with a lot of money as a sort of comparison in a few 20 the national got a report and real titian just over 300. 00 pounds said to spend 600. 00 pounds on what was a copy with an immense amount of money so they had to gather all the artists to gether they would have to vote on it and agree that this was a good purchase it was this extraordinary example of leonardos work i mean its a copy i think it. Seemed. A real window into the sort of achievements of leonardo and to have in the schools for the artist the students come up with was amazing theres a note by leonardo that refers to a john pepto who we think is probably the same person and we know that a figure more or less of this name is working in milan from at least around 1507 so in that 2nd period after leonardo has been back to florence and has then returned to milan and would you agree that hes probably one of the principal artist of the crop in the world yes so thats very much the current line of thinking although he has recently going back to the technical drawings underpinning this work and has due to Technical Analysis of the under drawings of the work has asserted that in fact its probably all track is hand initially and then jump coming in as a secondary hand. If its true that jump you 3 know worked on both the turn all over asia and then later around 1520. 00 on this copy it would seem that between these 2 paintings we would have a very accurate sense of what the original fresco once looked like. And i think the scale of it if it does appear to be very very close to the original uncertainly means heads that we can investigate further seem to be very place the original book traffic enchanted train office he had access to an art is drawing with cartoons and that i think was possibly evidence that there may have been some sort of putting out all tracing all you know from these original cartoon and say you know this is really interesting that the basis maybe kind of even closer than we originally thought. Not that we found not one but 2 live size versions of the last supper by layer nardo and his top pupils do we have long last have a key to see what the fresco and milan truly look like. The last supper a painting that would go on to transform the course of western art could anyone in their 49 years have an dissipated the tremendous impact that this fresco would have he would have been told by the lord of eco and the trier of said to me deliberate see the last supper and they probably would have been to expect that he would have done the last supper they came to all of those that have been done primarily in florence in tuscany scieno for the previous 200 years but laid out of course did not work like that and he did say that the way to make a painting was not to look at other paintings it was to look at real life so i think what he wanted to do and why he thought the bible was find the drama in the story was almost like he. Was the director of a film that he was given the brief this is the film youre going to make were going to make a film of the last supper. Going to action and then he also wanted the emotion and the dramatic intensity of what happened in those seconds in jerusalem and not of course is one of the magnificent things about the painting that he brings that to life and we see that and instantly i think we can understand whats happening there 3 paintings and yet one vision a vision of the pick thing the most familiar scene from the gospels in a way that had never been done before. And now we know what that original vision once looked like thanks to work canvas and the remote convent involved. Of course in the years to come the high renaissance would produce some of the most memorable frescoes in history including raw files and the vatican and michelangelos immortal ceiling of the Sistine Chapel but all that incredible real isnt all that monumental grass where the human figure 1st started with a francisco on the wall of a factory in the long. Term inspired changes to people making possible. To go out for a cup sometimes explain join them as they set out to save the environment learn from one another and Work Together for a Better Future for. Many months to you all but shipping it for. 90 minutes on d. W. How do you like to. Discover your concept discovered with the bulbs. Electric after 100 lives the ideals of the bomb house are more relevant today than they were a. 100 years ago the generic is reshaped things to come people understood design is a way of shaping society. A powerhouse thats cassella far. With ideas that are part of our future. What makes the bible and its. Fire into this fairy tale that somehow tied to our i. World mark documentary stars makes w. The c. W. News live from berlin and europe agrees on a rescue deal for countries hard hit by the coronavirus finance minister has come up with 500000000000 euros for emergency credit lines to soften the economic blow we will get the latest from our correspondent in brussels also coming up germany starts flying in thousands of seasonal farm workers to help with the harvest the farm hands from Eastern Europe face strict medical checks before they can begin picking to produce and easter like no
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.