Last Supper
Jacopo Tintoretto·1563
Historical Context
Tintoretto's Last Supper (1594) at San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, is his final and most revolutionary treatment of the subject — the masterpiece of his final years, completed two years before his death. Where Leonardo's Last Supper imposed an orderly spatial arrangement with Christ at the center, Tintoretto places the table at a diagonal recession into deep space, surrounds it with a kitchen bustling with servants and animals, and fills the upper half of the canvas with supernatural radiance and hovering angels. The effect transforms the intimate human gathering of the Gospels into a cosmic event where the mundane world of service and sustenance is simultaneously transcended by divine presence.
Technical Analysis
The dramatic perspective and supernatural lighting, with the lamp and Christ's halo creating dual light sources amid swirling angelic forms, creates one of the most radical compositions of the Renaissance.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the table set at a dramatic diagonal recession into deep space — Tintoretto's most radical compositional innovation in this subject.
- ◆Look at the servants and animals in the kitchen foreground, filling the scene with the business of a real household.
- ◆Observe the supernatural radiance and hovering angels in the upper half, transforming the mundane into the cosmic.
- ◆The lamp and Christ's halo create two competing light sources that animate the entire space with contrasting illumination.
- ◆Find where the mundane world of service and sustenance is simultaneously transcended — the moment of institution amid ordinary life.
