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Listed below are the articles that we have written on some of Da Vinci’s paintings.

As with all our articles, they are 100% unique, with information and images from all the very latest findings, discoveries and theories.

The Mona Lisa

• The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci
• Analysis of the Mona Lisa
• Features of the Mona Lisa
• Mona Lisa – Simple Commission, Self Portrait, or Greater Mystery? (long article)
• Looking at a Picture of the Mona Lisa
• The Official Stamp on the Mona Lisa
• Why is the Mona Lisa So Famous?
• Was Mona Lisa a Real Person?
• Where Can I find A Picture Of Mona Lisa?
• Who Painted the Mona Lisa : A Short Mona Lisa History
• Mona Lisa Smile Historical Review
• What has Mona Lisa Got to Smile About?
• Speed Painting the Mona Lisa (video)

The Last Supper

• History of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper Painting
• The Basis for Da Vinci’s Last Supper
• Impact of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper
• Da Vinci’s The Last Supper Conspiracy Theories
• The Last Supper Alternative Versions

Leonardo Da Vinci & His Other Paintings

• Da Vinci’s Early Paintings (1470-1490)
• Da Vinci’s Later Paintings (1490-1516)
• Leonardo DaVinci’s Drawings
• Motivation behind Leonardo Da Vinci’s Paintings
• Leonardo Da Vinci’s Artistic Technique
• The Paintings Featured in Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” Book
• Vitruvian Man : Symbol of Art and Science
• The Real Da Vinci Code

With painting as his art form, Leonardo Da Vinci proved to be one of the greatest artists who ever lived. The techniques he created in those years are considered to have been revolutionary to the world of art and today are studied as founding pillars of the Renaissance and movements that followed.

His palette in particular is incredibly famous for its ability to have been so revolutionary with so many aspects of art. In the Mona Lisa alone, Da Vinci was able to create numerous new methods of painting. For a man whose painting career was not nearly as prolific as some of his contemporaries, the impact he had on artistic expression is absolutely unmatched.

The first step in Leonardo’s paintings was to craft an underpainting composed entirely of basic browns and grays. This can be seen in his unfinished painting of St. Jerome, showing only those neutral colors with no form, lighting or shading. The addition of color does not come until much later when Leonardo would apply glazes of a transparent substance over the top of that underpainting. Because of that transparency, the upper glazes show bits of the underpainting, providing a guide of sorts for Leonardo’s painting.

What Was the Style of Leonardo Da Vinci?

His palettes were almost always very realistic, taken from the muted tones of the everyday veranda or river valley. On a typical palette for Leonardo Da Vinci sat browns, greens and blues all within the same basic range, so as to create the unity that his paintings have been so lauded for. He refrained from the brilliant yellows and reds of his predecessors and grabbed attention not with his colors, but with his technique.

It was in the lighting that almost all of Leonardo Da Vinci’s brilliance shone. His facial features were crafted through very carefully constructed blending and the carrying of colors between features. For this reason, in paintings such as the Mona Lisa, the lighting becomes darker and less colorful the further away from her face you are. Such a subtle technique draws absolute attention to the face and features of the sitter.

Another technique Leonardo Da Vinci developed in his Mona Lisa was that of sfumato. Sfumato, derived from the Italian word for smoke was Leonardo Da Vinci’s technique for softening and blending edges with a series of dark glazes. Rather than simply mixing the colors on his palette, Leonardo continually applied differing tones in glaze to create a certain depth that would never have been possible otherwise. This application of multiple transparencies created new colors that would be impossible through the simple mixing of paint.

In Leonardo Da Vinci’s perspective drawings, his various methods of geometrical progression and careful construction can be found. For Leonardo Da Vinci, perspective in art was one of the most important aspects. He developed the newly minted single point perspective in his Mona Lisa and was always careful to craft the most detailed of proportions, utilizing nearly perfect ratios in his work. His Vitruvian Man shows a meticulous care for the importance of perspective art.

Leonardo Da Vinci used numerous other tonal and glazing effects in his painting, many of which have been recognized as the first time in modern art. He did not simply paint as painting was done at that time. He recognized what he needed and wanted in an image and if a technique did not exist to create it, he invented a new technique. To recreate a similar palette and effect to that of Leonardo Da Vinci, a selection of earthy and transparent colors are ideal. It’s even possible to find predefined selections of “Da Vinci” like tones.

To say Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a genius is falling short of the praise he deserves. He was an artist, engineer, architect, mathematician, anatomist, musician, and inventor. He was able to change the world as we know it with his inventions such as the machine gun, the parachute, and the calculator. But despite his genius in so many areas of science and engineering, da Vinci is most well known for his paintings.

He kept his private life very secret, which is something many famous people attempt to do. However, da Vinci’s sexuality has been questioned and still is so he may have had to keep his life secret out of necessity, for the sake of his life and his career. Despite this, we see much evidence of his possible homosexuality in his paintings.

The paintings of da Vinci frequently depict both the male and female anatomy, although the female anatomy is often… However, there is much evidence to support his gay lifestyle, in his apprenticeships and his art. His most notable apprenticeship was with a young man, Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, whom he called Salai, which meant little Devil or unclean one. This youth was more trouble than he was worth, although a beautiful youth, and he stayed apprenticed to da Vinci for 30 years. Salai was the subject of at least two of da Vinci’s erotic homosexual paintings including one that was on the verso of a foglio and showed Salai’s behind being approached by many penises walking on two legs.

There were presumably many homo-erotic paintings including paintings depicting homosexual intercourse that were destroyed by a priest who found them after da Vinci’s death. The fact that homosexuality was prominent in much of his work, that he was accused of sodomy with a youth that was known for such acts, and that his “apprentice” of 30 years really did not make a name for himself as an artist leads one to believe that the allegations that da Vinci was gay are well-founded. After all, it is no secret that artists portray what they know in their work and that their work is a part of who they are. It also makes sense considering the fact that if da Vinci was not gay, why would he bring about the speculation that he was through his work at a time in which that type of lifestyle could have brought death.

Of course, the church did not approve of homosexuality, but somehow, da Vinci’s life remained somewhat of a mystery. It may well be that he was so influential that he could “get away” with it. He is certainly honored by today’s gay community as being a “gay hero”. Whether he was indeed gay or not is, at this point, still speculated despite the evidence in favor of this. It is known that da Vinci generally kept company with men and did not approve of the concept of heterosexual relations leading to procreation. He never sired any children and he left his estate to his two apprentices, Francesco Melzi and Salai. Gay or not? You decide.

Leonardo diVinci’s drawing of man in ideal form, the Vitruvian man, was first sketched in 1492 or so in one of his numerous journals. The image, a sketch of a nude male stretched into two separate poses within the space of a square and a circle, is one of his most famous works. Occasionally called the Canon of Proportions or Proportions of Man, the image has long been held as an important symbol for the proportions of man.

With the Vitruvian Man’s proportions, Leonardo da Vinci was able to blend both art and science, by very definition the goal of the Renaissance masters. Leonardo himself had a great deal of interest in human anatomy and the concept of proportion. One of Leonardo’s lasting mindsets and overall legacies for the age was the idea that the human body was a symbolic representation of the greater universe itself.

Furthermore, the circle and square surrounding the male body in the drawing have been described as symbols themselves. Many believe that the square surrounding the body is a symbol of the material existence of man while the circle represents the spiritual existence. His goal through this drawing then was to create a direct correlation between the material and spiritual aspects of humanity.

His own writing in the notebook, written in his famous mirrored writing, described his sketch as a study of the proportions of the human body, in this case male. He utilized the words of the Roman architect Vitruvius to create his proportions for the ideal male body, which included:

• The Palm is the width of four fingers
• The Foot is the width of four palms
• The Cubit is the width of six palms
• A Man is four cubits tall
• Four cubits equals one pace
• The measurement of a man’s outspread arms is the same as his height.
• The hairline to the chin is equal to one-tenth of a man’s height
• The top of the head to the chin is one-eighth of a man’s height.
• Shoulder width shall be no more than one quarter of a man’s height

Leonardo’s own drawing combines both the descriptions of Vitruvius and his own observations to create a set careful crafted proportions with what many people have interpreted as symbols. The overall effect is to create a direct correlation between human symmetry and the universe. The positioning of the limbs in the drawing makes it possible to create upward of 16 different poses and the proportions remain the same.

The outer circle has been described as a full range of motion, though it does depart slightly from Vitruvius’ original writings by lowering the arms slightly. The secondary drawing shows a much less extended body but keeps the very same proportions in line with the rest of the drawing.

Over the course of the centuries, Da Vincci’s Vitruvian man has come to symbolize everything about Leonardo DaVinci’s calculated approach to both art and science and the beauty of the human form. Artists and scientists alike study high resolution Vitruvian Man copies as a means to recreate their own images and better understand those relationships.

The Da Vinci Code plays on many of the theories and mysteries that have long followed Leonardo Da Vinci and his eccentric methods around for the last 500 years. Despite the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, the book and film utilized numerous other paintings to make points about Da Vinci’s ties to the Priory of Scion. Many of those images, some of Da Vinci’s most enduring and famous legacies, have been around for years.

Madonna of the Rocks 1483

As the painting in the Louvre behind which is hidden the key Langdon finds before escaping the police, the Madonna of the Rocks is yet another incredible famous Da Vinci image. Da Vinci painted two versions of his famous first commission. The first of these two versions is that of the 1483 Madonna of the Rocks. Originally commissioned by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, the painting was to be an altar piece but was not completed at the time required of the contract with Da Vinci. For that reason, it was left unfinished for the better part of two years. However, because of its popularity, the painting was eventually painted again for another church’s same altar piece, that being the version that remains today in the London Gallery. In the Da Vinci code, it is remarked that this version of the painting was considered heretical by the church with Jesus kneeling to John and numerous symbols of femininity and masculinity littered throughout the rocky landscape.

Madonna of the Rocks 1508

The second version of Da Vinci’s famous image of Jesus and John meeting on the trip to Egypt is located today in the London Gallery and was painted over 20 years after the original. The painting is believed to have been the result of the excessive popularity of the first, thus commissioned as a copy. Leonardo is not believed to have painted the entire work alone, though his contributions are noted by the shading and characteristic tones of his painting. In the Da Vinci Code, the London copy of the Madonna of the Rocks was supposedly the second version created by Da Vinci to mollify the enraged Church after his heretical first painting.

Adoration of the Magi

As one of Da Vinci’s original commissions, The Adoration of the Magi was never quite finished. Today it sits in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The painting itself depicts the traditional image of the wisest of men in the land bowing before the infant Christ. Thought the image was never completed, much has been made of the symbolism found in it by novels such as the Da Vinci Code. Located in back, beside the Tree are two figures that Brown denotes as Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Behind them is a Knight Templar and the careful constructed “V” shape in an onlooker’s hand is meant to represent femininity. The painting itself was left unfinished as Da Vinci left for Milan before he was able to get beyond the preliminary sketching stage of the commission.

Vitruvian Man

The Vitruvian Man is a simple drawing found in Leonardo’s notebooks that has become one of his most enduring works, a symbol of art and science in unison and the perfect geometry and proportions that so intrigued him. The work depicts two poses of a man stretched out within a square and a circle, designed to show the perfect proportions of the male body as described by the Ancient Roman, Vitruvius and revised by Leonardo himself. In the Da Vinci Code, the French Curator of the Louvre is found dead in this pose, utilizing the geometry of the original to leave a message for Langdon and his granddaughter.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s artistic style derived from a variety of different purposes and causes throughout his life. He left us only a small handful of paintings to his name, barely more than half a dozen, but he is still recognized as one of the preeminent artists of the Western World. This derives greatly from his ability to think on and produce solutions and methods for almost every problem he saw.

As for what makes his artistic output so engaging and influential despite his lack thereof, the answer largely lies in the work he did as a scientist and thinker outside of art. His fascination with the human body – its composition, form and function – is best represented in the Vitruvian Man, but goes well beyond that simple sketch. But, Leonardo’s fascination went much deeper and with that fascination came a deep understanding of the human form. The paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci are testament to that.

By understanding what it was that made the human body work, Leonardo da Vinci, with simple watercolor paints, was able to depict the absolutely subtlety that was the human form with ease, best seen in the careful placement and perspective play of the Mona Lisa. He developed a new take on perspective in his artwork that artists before him had not yet attempted. In the Mona Lisa, single point perspective was preeminent and in the Last Supper, the revised perspective, radiating from Christ, with Judas as a member of the disciples at the table has been well documented.

Many people have broken down Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings and work into three main arenas. The first of those is that of understanding the world in which he lived produced countless drawings and observations on the nature of the world, the human body and the natural world. The second is that of imagination, in which Leonardo applied his observations to the creation and imagination of new ideas such as the thousands of inventions found in his notes. The third was his theoretical phase, in which he tried to understand the greater basis of the world and how everything worked. This is where his obsession with mathematics derived from.

Da Vinci’s artistic technique was a combination of all of his interests into a single expression of his internal energies. Though a good deal of his work can be given over to the necessity of gaining commissions and making money to survive, Leonardo’s actual productions were the culmination of his entire life’s work. The geometrical beauty of his paintings resulted from his extreme interest in the topic and his human forms, so incredibly alive in their expressions were the result of his ability to understand and replicate the physical nature of things around him. For Leonardo de Vinci, pictures he created were infinitely more intricate than the words he used to describe them.

Many of Da Vinci’s paintings were of a religious nature and that was par for the day and age in which he lived. Similarly, many of the techniques witnessed in his work are most likely results of the preceding style of the day. The feminine appearance of John in the Last Supper or the superimposition of his own facial features onto the Mona Lisa – most likely because he had studied his own face – have given rise to many other theories about his inclinations because of the incredible detail that his studies lent to his work.

To say Leonardo Da Vinci invented light, shadow, foreshortening, and perspective on his own is giving one man too much credit. However, looking at the work of his contemporaries and predecessors, it can definitely be said that his attention to the detail and form of the world around him created the kind of intellect and depth needed by a single man to discover such techniques. His use of sfumato in the Mona Lisa is legendary as well as the development of single point perspective. His incredible mastery of triangulated geometry in so many of his paintings has been replicated for centuries and he was able to, more than anyone else, understand the necessity of proper ratios and perspective. Leonardo Da Vinci’s artwork and paintings are an example of what the renaissance was about, the combination of curiosity, intellect and absolute talent. Leonardo Da Vinci’s images live on today as a testimony to that.

Leonardo Da Vinci is nearly as famous for many of his drawings and sketches as he was for his completed paintings. The difference of course is that his completed works are much less in number and often took him years to complete. His drawings, often found in his notebooks, ranged from simple sketches of arms for use in the Last Supper to fully featured sketches of paintings he would eventually alter or never painted at all.

Because he was such an incredibly apt draftsman, there are infinitely more journals of small sketches than completed works of art. In fact, it is often said that between Leonardo Da Vinci’s studies and paintings, he preferred his studies and painted rarely because of the demands of his other studies. Regardless, he was one of the greatest artists who ever lived and it shows even in the simplest of sketches.

The earliest Da Vinci illustration, dated back to 1473, is that of a Landscape of the Arno Valley. This sketch is an incredibly detailed depiction of the river, mountains, Montelupo Castle, and farmlands beyond the castle of the valley. From here, he would go on to sketch numerous other drafts.

The most famous of his many drawings is that of the Vitruvian Man. Kept now carefully guarded, the Vitruvian Man is one of the most famous single images in history and depicts the carefully crafted proportions of the ideal male body. Another incredibly famous and largely used drawing is that of the Head of an Angel, a sketch utilized for The Virgin of the Rocks.

The most impressive of Leonardo Da Vinci’s classical drawings would have to be the 160×100 cm rendering in black chalk of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist. Using the same techniques developed in the Mona Lisa of sfumato and shadowy corners, the drawing was never made into a painting. The closest painting to this image is that of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne.

Leonardo’s drawings consist of numerous other creations, many of which include what were once considered caricatures. However, after close studies of the heads and bodies drawn, it has been largely agreed upon that they were real models with deformities of some kind. Additionally there are numerous sketches of a certain man whose “Grecian Profile” was greatly appreciated by Leonardo during his career. The sketches often show the young man dressed in fancy costumes, possibly related to the pageants for which Leonardo occasionally worked.

There are numerous sketches devoted solely to the effects and depiction of fabric as seen in draperies. Leonardo worked extensively to do so in his early career. There is one particular sketch that exists as an early example of likely hired work. Leonardo sketched the death from hanging of Giuliano Baroncelli. He political conspiracy aside, Leonardo wrote casually of the deceased clothing.

One final famous sketch that has been tied to Leonardo and mentioned repeatedly when studying his other works is the Leonardo Da Vinci self portrait. The portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci is a simple rendition of himself in the latter years of his life. However, the controversy surrounding that picture of Leonardo Da Vinci’s face arises from the direct connection between the facial structures of the self-portrait and the Mona Lisa and St. John the Baptist. It has lead to much speculation that the Mona Lisa might in fact be Da Vinci himself or another woman. However, as there are no other pictures of Leonardo Da Vinci, there is no real way to know.

Paintings of the 1490s

In the 1490s, the most widely known and popular of Leonardo Di Vinci’s paintings is the Last Supper. Started in 1495, the painting depicts the final meal between Jesus and his disciples shortly before he was captured and executed. This piece of Leonardo da Vinci’s artwork in particular relays the exact the moment when Jesus announces that he will be betrayed.

The painting shows an entire story with each disciple reacting in their own manner. Vasari’s biography goes into great detail in the methods Leonardo took in painting the mural, and the time it took him. Some days he would paint for hours and other days he would simply stare at the wall for hours and eventually spent days walking through the city trying to find a suitable face for Judas.

The painting was finished in three years and immediately hailed as a masterpiece. However, the problem with the painting was the fact that it could not remain on the wall for longer than a decade or so before it began to flake free. Leonardo, in a rare instance of failed experimentation, tried to use new binding agents for his painting instead of the reliable old method of Fresco. It quickly molded and flaked off. However it has remained one of the most reproduced works of art on earth. How many other paintings did Leonardo da Vinci paint in his latter years though?

Paintings of the 1500s

After finishing the Last Supper, the art of Leonardo Da Vinci actually became more impressive as he took to another masterpiece that the world has been fawning over ever since. This work, the Mona Lisa, has become one of the most enduring works of art, with the knowing smile that has captivated five centuries of fans. This particular painting first utilized Leonardo’s sfumato technique, or the use of blending shadows for ambiguous lines. When Leonardo Da Vinci created the painting, female head perspective was still quite underdeveloped. Located in the Louvre today, the Mona Lisa is also one of Leonardo’s best surviving works of art and a pinnacle in understanding the subtleties of human emotion.

Many consider The Virgin and Child with St. Ann Da Vinci’s most underrated work. It is another famous composition set in landscape during these later years of his career. The figures are once more set at odd angles, much like the earlier unfinished St. Jerome piece. The painting is slightly different as Mary is seated on the knee of her mother and leans forward to support Christ as he plays with a lamb. This painting introduced numerous trends of superimposition into the landscapes that Venetian painters such as Tintoretto would pick up in later years.

In 1508, Da Vinci painted the famously lost composition of Leda and the Swan, depicting the mythical woman standing naked beside her swan, overlooking two sets of twins below, recently hatched from egg shells. Today, only copies and no original of Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings survive to relay the image, similar to the fate of Michelangelo’s famous Leda and the Swan painting, depicting the two in the throws of love making.

Another painting that has been disputed from this era is the famously multi-credited St. John in the Wilderness painting, depicting St. John holding a stick in the wilderness with a laurel and fruit. It is unknown who painted this exactly, but its discovery has been attributed to Da Vinci’s workshop.

Completed in 1516, St. John the Baptist is considered to be Da Vinci’s last known painting. Only recently attributed to him, the painting depicts a lightly smiling St. John pointing heavenward. Heavy comparisons have been made between this painting and that of the Mona Lisa as well as the self portraits of Da Vinci to which both sets of facial features compare so readily.

Early Paintings Leonardo Da Vinci Painted and Info on Them

Many ask the question, How many paintings has Leonardo Da Vinci painted? The answer is: not very many. However, those that he did paint have become worldwide masterpieces recognized everywhere for their incredible talent. Leonardo DaVinci’s paintings first began appearing in the 1470s with the Baptism of Christ, painted in tandem with Verrocchio. During his time spent in Verrocchio’s workshop, two other paintings are believed to have been painted, both Annunciations. The first is a small 59cm long, 14 cm high piece. It is a “predella” for a much larger work, a painting by Lorenzo Di Credi. The second of these Annunciations was a 217 cm long piece, much larger in scale.

Both of these initial paintings were crafted in the very basic Fra Angelico formation, pictures of the Virgin Mary sitting on the right side of the picture with an angel to her left. The angel in both paintings is wearing a flowing gown and has raised wings and a lily. In the smaller, first picture, Mary has her eyes downcast as a submissive gesture toward God. In the second, larger picture however, Mary is not submissive at all. The second picture shows Mary with a finger placed in her bible to mark her place and a hand raised in greeting to the angelic visitor before her. She takes on her position as the Mother of God with confidence. This first of a handful of Leonardo Da Vinci paintings begins his technique of placing a human face on the image of divine figures.

Da Vinci’s Paintings of the 1480s

Beginning with Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings in the 1480s, he received two substantial commissions among a few smaller works. He started a third work that would be groundbreaking in how it was composed. The first of the two commissions was the image of St. Jerome in the Wilderness. It is barely started and Da Vinci never finished it, but what is present is very odd compared to other works of the time. Da Vinci placed the figure of Jerome in the middle of the composition and slightly below the line of sight. He forms a trapezoidal shape and looks in the opposite direction with his signature lion sprawled across the front of the painting. The landscape itself is slightly odd with craggy rock formations around the saint.

Among Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings that were never finished, the unfinished Adoration of the Magi s one of his most famous. It was commissioned by the Monks of San Donato a Scopeto. It is about 250cm square and involved years of preliminary sketches and drawings by Leonardo before he even started. However, he left in 1482 for Milan to win favor with Ludovico il Moro and was never able to finish the work.

The third and final painting from this period that Da Vinci worked on was the Virgin of the Rocks, a commission he took in Milan. The work itself was to cover an altar piece for the Immaculate Conception Church with the help of the de Predis brothers. The painting itself portrayed an image never found in the Bible but in the apocryphal tomes of other writers. It shows a meeting between John the Baptist as an infant in the care of an angel with Jesus’s family as they traveled to Egypt. The infant John sees and worships Jesus and shows them all kneeling before Christ in the midst of a series of rocks and swirling water. These baby pictures of Leonardo Da Vinci are famous throughout the world, largely because there are two completed versions when there are so few of his other works.

The painting by Da Vinci eventually completed was not nearly the commission he was given though. The brothers of the Immaculate Conception had request a much larger painting with upwards of 50 figures and full architectural details. Eventually the painting was finished and another version completed along side it, which Da Vinci took with him to France. However, no one was paid for their work and the church never received what they had asked for.

Other Last Supper Pictures in History

There have been numerous other versions of the Last Supper painted over the years. It was considered a very important piece during the Renaissance and because of that was repeatedly crafted for the sake of proving that an artist could do so. After Leonardo’s famous work, many other artists were influence by the Last Supper. There are numerous different versions. These are a few of the most famous:

Durer’s Last Supper

Durer worked numerous sketches and preliminary drawings for a series of portraits portraying the Passion and the last supper. His drawings, found and dated to the years 1521-1523, in Berlin, Florence, and Frankfurt show his intentions to create a different perspective of the Last Supper, with Christ sitting sideways.

The Last Supper by Castagno

Castagno’s depiction of the Last Supper predated Leonardo’s by almost 50 years. Originally painted in 1447, the Last Supper was a companion piece to his works depicting the Passion. The room itself is depicted as a rather sober architectural affair and is filled with numerous marble panels in full color, to set a more engaging backdrop to the affair of the painting itself. The painting is famous for many its smaller details, including the halos depicted on each of the characters and the highlights in their hair. While Judas sits, isolated on the other side of the table in this painting, John sleeps casually beside Jesus, two common themes in paintings of these figures.

The Last Supper by Domenico Ghirlandaio

Ghiraldeno’s Last Supper is depicted on the wall of a refectory in Ognissanti. His image is based very much on the architectural style of Castagno while creating a series of vivid animated  lines and angles. He refrains from any emotional or dramatic expression and depicts his figures as rather peaceful and at ease, even Judas. He keeps his Judas postured on the opposite side of the table as Christ though and most of the characters are isolated in their serene gestures.

His lunettes in particular are of note as they depict the vivid gardens and palm-trees that don’t quite fit in but create a rather bourgeois effect on the architecture. A peacock sits on the windowsill and a fine white tablecloth with fancy embroidery graces the table. It appears to be more of an Italian room and table than anything in the time of Christ.

Salvador Dali’s Sacrament of the Last Supper

Dali’s attempt to create a Last Supper came shortly after he entered what is known as his “classical period” leaving behind much of what made his Surrealist work so engaging. The painting though, is still typical Dali in that it stretches beyond the image itself. After viewing the painting, Salvador Dali’s influence from The Last Supper became very apparent in his work. He himself described his painting as “Arithmetic and philosophical cosmogory based on the paranoiac sublimity of the number twelve…the pentagon contains microman:Christ”.  His images are classical and yet modernized by the removal of triangular shapes to be replaced by five sides and the image of man above the supper.

Tintoretto’s Last Supper

During the years between 1590 and 1600, Tintoretto and his workshop were commissioned to paint numerous paintings to decorate the new Church of San Giorgio Maggiore. He gave many of the works to his coworkers. However, there is no argument that the Tintoretto Last Supper was painted by himself. He had actually painted the scene numerous times throughout his life. This particular version is one in which he has Christ mingling with his followers, an image not common in the time. There is a singular, winged figure in the light around his head in the Tintoretto Last Supper, creating a different kind of painting than any of the other Last Suppers.

The Last Supper of Phillipe de Champagne

Champagne’s Supper at Emmaus has occasionally been attributed to Philippe’s nephew Jean-Baptiste, though there is no way to be sure. The painting itself would have been painted sometime between 1631 and 1684 then depending on which of them pained it. The painting itself is a simple portrait of Jesus and two of his disciples seated with a man, most likely a server, dealing with a cat on the ground and another listening to Jesus’s words. The painting’s style has been attributed to the influence of the Jensenist Monestary near Paris, where much of Champagne’s influence derived.

The Last Supper of Jacopo Bassano

Bassano’s painting of the Last Supper is believed to date to around 1538 and is considered a premier piece in the life of the artist. The painting was likely completed during the years Bassano stayed with Bonifacio da Pitati in his workshop, a painter who himself often painted similar subjects. The painting itself is much more chaotic and crowded than many of the other productions of the Last Supper and much has been made of the manner in which Christ stands in contrast to that of the rough inn-keeper and the dog and cat teasing each other below the table. The disciples are postured in a manner that creates a forced perspective on the table and much of what appears in this painting has been credited for the later works of artists like Tintoretto in the Venetian style

There have been numerous other editions of the painting and no one really knows how many artists have painted the Last Supper. Emil Nolde’s Last Supper as well as the Last Supper of Gebhard are both great examples of fine art. Michelangelo himself was purported to have crafted a Last Supper. A simple look into the Last Supper antique prints available will reveal numerous examples of other artists’ work. You can find numerous Last Supper pictures or information on the Last Supper by Domenico Ghirlandaio or any of the other artists listed on any number of art gallery websites.