Made for minds. The less suffer by Leonardo Da Vinci when it was 1st shown in 1499. 00 it 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 only. This is the incredible story of a hunt across europe following a trail of clues and documents hidden for centuries. That suggests that layla go and his workshop painted another last supper a huge life size scale 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. To caylee because the man in charge of the juke named Ludovico Sforza was a tyrant who had seized power in 14 he wore them many other such rulers he was desperate to cloak use the legitimacy with the splendor of a renaissance court. The joke at many projects a monastery complex called it just tolls on 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 the liberally designed to be the biggest Church Building in all of italy so naturally the 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. 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 vincent. Leonardo was a natural child the son of a farmers daughter catherine who one day had a roll in the hay with a promising young notary cold said pierre 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 leonardo was never truly part of the creative circles of florence around lorenzo the major with artists like betty gillan diet or michelangelo these were folks who wrote latin sonnets and could hold their own and find society there not i was never part of that. But said piero never forgot his son and was only is 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 for 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 dire angel to the right painted by frodo kill himself. So how did he create such lovely and shellac faces the answer by using a New Invention called oils or is most of florence still used the flat collars of tempera paint which dries quickly leonardo had begun to experiment with pigments mixed with oils the technique 1st developed in northern europe. They advantage all hast severus extemporaneous 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 almost seamlessly and 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 may well they were ground up pigments there could be anything from bones to dry possibly to because famous only 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 at that. The 15th century the quatro 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 and science in literature and in engineering here for example Filippo Brunelleschi used roman engineering to create this vast dome over the do moment the cathedral of florence while burlesque he was taking measurements of ancient temples and rome he had discovered that when you draw it as street or a building all the horizontal lines seem to converge to a Common Center what today we call the vanishing point. The lasky had discovered the laws of linear perspective it revolutionized the renaissance art suddenly painters could create an illusion of 3 dimensional space as 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 of 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 massaging the 1st fresco in history to use linear perspective. People in those days with the thought of as some form of magic to see space weather was only a flat wall. Leonardo was also trained in the magic of linear perspective in the workshop of his master of the locket and he too was amazed by the possibilities but as he began his 1st major painting they are now 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 appeasing air. Look about you. When you see a beautiful face remember its features and fix them in your mind. So what layer nardo is saying is dont let geometry deprive your characters of feelings of emotions of psychological drama and the 1st boulder tends to do just that as 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 done finished it would take nearly 2 decades before layer nardo group realize his great vision he talked about wanting to create his work of fame you can see but unless hes at work of fame he can see down to tell us 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 the most powerful man in italy many the 14 eighties and for the ninetys was the duke of milan a lot of equals fortson and so thats why he went north in 1482 to begin working for someone who is in effect a 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 catalogue all of us military towns. Methods for destroying every fortress were strong in is built on a rock. I can also design different types of can which will turn stones and ball like a hail storm. Leonardos hopes came to look and it took several years for a joke ludovico 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. Live in arthur was ready to tackle the greatest most ambitious. Composition of his young career a series of 13 live sized 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. Has become a surprise but you really dont know what we do know is that the jokes for tended to favor home grown artists like giovanna the month of final. May not have been particularly in maginot 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. The 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 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 found no whose family had been working in the cathedral of milan for many decades. The who all but who was going to paint the north wall. Lay not of the vinci up to this point but lay it out or had done other than the failed question project in the 2 small portraits was the production of plays and masks for the entertainment of the jew can his court was he truly going to be good. This monumental fresco by lane order was in effect a special effects man for the duke and so i 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 lion. That is why little naruto was determined that with this fresco he was going to use thomas 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 players 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. In order wanted action and then 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 theyre asking each other. Is it could you let me theres no disbelief theres anger there is in the cases im like st john he just appears to be coming awake and theres being interrogated by st peter and so he does he takes each in each of these 12 and gives them. Some characteristics some you know with facial expressions hand gestures things like that in order to take us into the character but here is the great tragedy and most of these beautiful expressions are no longer visible today but a sentimental is not that double all kinds of any kind of press that has a little heat on them to pick up on a technique because you havent enough that if i say book express you know the next block it out wasnt to said spied on i dont ascended into. Unlike want a funnel who used conventional fresco techniques leonardo could not resist experimenting with his pigments to try to create the same optical effects that he had pioneered with this Oil Paintings the result was catastrophic i 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 insured and exploring. Nuances of total british and all those kinds of distinctions that i think are really not possible to achieve in france. In 1517 an influential cardinal named luigi dot argonne and his secretary and 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 down the savoy the wall or some other form of the clicked. In the centuries since the fresco continued to deteriorate because it was adjoining 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 leader 12 just one year after his elevation the king marched on the lawn 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 sport so the answer is in the book written by lay on our toes 1st biographer george of us our. Has for sorry says the king went on a visit he went 3 the last supper. It was deeply pressed by the Actual Service 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 fresco back to france with no regard for expense so much to it he want to have it. But since it was painted on a wall its majesty could not have his design. 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 leonard of himself at least thats our theory. Even though leonardo was in milan he was wanted back in florence to finish another francisco the battle of and beyond and the whole of the 500. 00 of the pilots were done a seniority 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 and say the state archives of forms but documents that go back over a 1000 years and here we found a truly remarkable letter with a letter that he believed he said although he chased him up a lesson yet if you didnt think india to question authority she jane not your militia question to say it then here is a letter from the french king himself king louis to 12th to the consulate year to 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 live audio work for us for a period of time and carry out the work we tend to do. I think its becoming clearer what the french king once lived in order to do if he can have their 1st school itself he will have the next best thing a copy on canvas that he can take back to france. And whats interesting about this is that the king doesnt tell the senior react what he would like him to do he is very cagey about the thing 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 the virgin of the rocks painted with his associate ambrosia the plate hes. The madonna of the yarn winder possibly painted with this pupil francesco spaniel the saint m. Painted with his assistant to mel c. And of course the mona lisa painted by his pupil and close companion sala. There was a good reason for that here in the sometime early in a valet and that about had a large studio with lots of assistance but he works 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 filling zest. Theres only one way to find out and that is to go to france. Today we think of paris as the worlds epicenter all our culture and fashion this is where the world kongs 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. Of. Somebodys time lena 12th came to the throne france was a mere shadow of its former self and louis was very much aware. 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 offer 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 shock to the guy you which once served as the residents of georgia done was. Done well why. The most important member decides of a king with the 12 a sort of Prime Minister we can underline the fact that he was us both with us the king. Like his master king louis dumb ones was deeply smitten with the beauty of italian art he decided he wanted to build a shed to that 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. He took an artist went to school and this will soon. Fall paintings like in the last 100. Various lottery. The people of new you know to the beach he came here. And what did he do you do lots of things to degrade yourself is one of the most beautiful shot of the sixtys 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 past. Unfortunately the chapel and much of the shuttle were destroyed in the french revolution and the term world not follow but one work that andrea painted for the shadow still exists a deposition from the cross which today hangs in the. Central florida what we know of him is that paul was from a family of artists we think he was probably was in balance in a period when you know out of his very 1st and so he wasnt there with him right from the beginning and around 49 to 5 to public and back from Bennetts Team on with his brother christopher which is of course exactly the moment when you know days beginning to work on the last day if thats true. Then celerity 0 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 chain in the archives of the chateau we find a key piece of evidence an inventory of all property including paintings from the 1540 s. One of these paintings is no sin fact on twine and gone persona the film will say your feast up r. T. D. Beetle the last supper on canvas with monumental figures which his grace had brought over from alone. Could this be our 1st hard piece of evidence of a live size copy of the last supper on gone past on ours with monumental failures. Put this together with what we know that andreas alarie was in ga you know in 1509 and that pieces begin to fall into place. There is little doubt that solari 0 was a favorite of the dumb was family and 1507. 00 even painted a portrait of george as nephew Charlotte Dunn was charlotte 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 much but also other leonardo pupils were involved including for example jumping at 3. But heres the next question where is this campus after all if its as big as we think it is its not something you would lose very easily and thats why we find ourselves on the train to antwerp in belgium to follow the next trail of clothes. We usually think of and for prez the city of rubens painter of the baroque but even in the early renaissance and for was a very important city primarily because of served as the major port of the low countries. But things started to change in the early 16th century primarily as a result of the growing tensions between the protestant north and the catholic south which ultimately produced the 80 years war. This is when the Catholic Church looked for every which way to defend the faith in the low countries and founded in this act the advent of total. You. Know 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 is to exists in a small chapel on the grounds of this very calm. And. Oh my god there it is again here for 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 didnt you church he wrote a letter to the abbot that he did the last supper of Leonardo Da Vinci that was sold on the 2nd of february in 5845 its oh the painting was actually presented and sold. A product of lived out of the big painted by leo out of the well it was in those days it was not that important but probably. 90 percent of the painting is the work of. A disciple spiel pulls off of genius tell me about this theory of who painted christ and saying just well. You know but ive been the. Lady who has been restoring for 22 years the original fresco in milan will as she has she said to this is a work of a group of your pupils disciples of. But she said im convinced that christ is and especially also the apostle of sin john your favorite model of i think she has been painted by himself by a lot of them yeah. Why is that its here well its a quality the quality of your when you look at painting you see that in john as this is a very nice its exceptional quality and very very about my day also made. Some 20 years ago in the. Under gag yeah pasta skate exact same john christ youre telling me that there are there isnt under drawing under all of the apostles except for john and crossed that is painted directly on the campus that was that his old 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 living perhaps on various celeriac that lay not to himself painted christ and since the most important figures on the last supper pretty yeah yeah and that was so its they both to painting ass a work thats fascinating thats fascinating it is a beautiful work but is this the painting that pin louis to 12 ordered from leonardo in 1507 and that 100 or so laurie you brought to friends and 59. Fortunately the abbey has an extensive archive going back many hundreds of years and here we find in this publishing eyewitness account that for sayings of course hunt and jewel it is said that the painting is made after an original painted on the wall that is now in bad past. What a king of france who conquered milan saw all the painting he was very disappointed that he could not take it within 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 and a. 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 scamper screwed not have been painted by just one artist such a small time frame so who would have thought he was on the bench and various solaria the most likely candidate is an italian artist called jump you team for as we will discover in london he went on to make a 2nd call. For 250 years the Royal Academy of Burlington House in london this been training 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 material through artist and father for them to look at when did the World Economy acquire the copy of the last supper and why did they acquire so it was 1821 the academy bought it for 600 guineas which then was a lot of money as a sort of comparison in a few 20 the national got a report every old titian just over 300. 00 pounds so to spend 600. 00 pounds on what was a copy was an immense amount of money so they had to gather all the artists together 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 was seen as a real window into the sort of achievements of leonardo and to have in the schools for the artist the students to look at was it was an amazing as a night finally not it refers to a jam packed and we think its probably the same person i. 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 artists in the copy of the world yes so thats very much the current line of thinking although actually moroni has recently going back to the technical drawings underpinning this work and has a few Technical Analysis of the under drawings of the work has asserted that in fact its probably all tracking his hand initially and then jumper trainer coming in as a secondary hand. If its true that jump you 3 know worked on both the tunnel 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. I think the scale of it is it does appear to be very very close to the original and certainly means heads that we can investigate further seem to be very close the regional book traffic and champion train obviously had access to leonardo is crawling with cartoons and that i think with possibly evidence that there may have been some sort of pushing out talk tracing all you know from these original cartoon you know this is really interesting that the basis maybe even closer than we originally thought. Not that we found not one with 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. A last supper painting that would go on to transform the course of western art. Anyone in the 49 years havent dissipated the tremendous impact that this fresco would have he would have been told by the look of eco and the trial of sentiment to look at see the last supper and they probably would have expected he would have done the last supper it came to all of those that have been done primarily in florence in tuscany sienna 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 and 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. Wanted action and he also wanted the emotion and the dramatic intensity of what happens in those 2nd hes in jerusalem and thats of course 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 depicting 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 fangs to work canvas and the remote convent in belgium of course in the years to come the high renaissance would produce some of the most memorable frescoes in history including raw files thongs and the vatican and michelangelos immortal sealing of the Sistine Chapel but all that incredible realisable that monumental grasp of the human figure 1st started with a fresh call on the wall of a factory in milan. He sings. Enjoys tossed. Even heidi its peanut butter. Talker fish dandenault gets tons of this stuff. By selling what they can to marry preference to stock. Your romance. In 30 minutes on d w. Y d yes it is on its way to bring you more conservation. How do we make cities greener how can we protect habitat so we can make a difference google ideas environmental series and global 3000. 00 on g. W. And online. Im going crazy thing in all the time. How to handle our new lives in times of the current a pandemic d. W. Reporter keep your job just like everyone else and shes looking for answers and thankfully with the help of jamie expect a few other. Things you loose is not life as we know it up. In this together our new web series. This is state of the news live from berlin the indian authorities are situate steen the National Crown of virus lock down even as poverty pushes millions to ignore the missions its a question of survival as the poorest are forced to scavenge for food also coming up. Covet knotting death toll in the u. S. So was passed 2000 in one day President Donald Trump says he wants to
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