Leonardo and the Last Supper
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Leonardo and the Last Supper Details
Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art--The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at 43, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise. His latest failure was a giant bronze horse to honor Sforza's father: his 75 tons of bronze had been expropriated to be turned into cannon to help repel a French invasion of Italy. The commission to paint The Last Supper in the refectory of a Dominican convent was a small compensation, and his odds of completing it were not promising: Not only had he never worked on a painting of such a large size--15' high x 30' wide--but he had no experience in the extremely difficult medium of fresco.In his compelling new book, Ross King explores how--amidst war and the political and religious turmoil around him, and beset by his own insecurities and frustrations--Leonardo created the masterpiece that would forever define him. King unveils dozens of stories that are embedded in the painting. Examining who served as the models for the Apostles, he makes a unique claim: that Leonardo modeled two of them on himself. Reviewing Leonardo's religious beliefs, King paints a much more complex picture than the received wisdom that he was a heretic. The food that Leonardo, a famous vegetarian, placed on the table reveals as much as do the numerous hand gestures of those at Christ's banquet. As King explains, many of the myths that have grown up around The Last Supper are wrong, but its true story is ever more interesting. Bringing to life a fascinating period in European history, Ross King presents an original portrait of one of history's greatest geniuses through the lens of his most famous work.
Reviews
I read in another review somewhere that there are no new facts in this book, and yet my sense after reading it is that its author has made all sorts of facts about Leonardo new again. I've read a pile of books on Leonardo and I probably did know most of this story, but King has a novelist's ability to fill in those details around an event in a way that makes it come alive. He also has a very wise nose with which he follows the story exactly where the reader wishes it to go. Questions raised in the back of your own mind somehow are always addressed. King has a real sense of what the reader wants to know and how things must've felt and smelled and looked like in the 15th century. Everyone knows, for instance, that later in life Leonardo had a long beard, but I did not know how rare a long beard was at the time. I did not know that two years after the `discovery' of America Leonardo was buying corn to eat. Most especially I did not know that there was another artist in the room with him while he painted the Last Supper, another artist painting a crucifixion on the opposite wall across from him at the same time. It never occurred to me that there might've been someone standing there saying, "You sure you want to do it like that? It might peel."I found this whole narrative fresh and smart and very well told. King telescopes an entire life into those few years Leonardo was painting the Last Supper. This is that rare biography that brings a giant like Leonardo down to human size, and yet you come away seeing this weird toothless old man as one of the great individuals of modern history. Highly recommended. Buy two.