By Mary Louise Schumacher
McClatchy Newspapers
It would take nearly 15 centuries for an artist to come along and create an image synonymous with the Last Supper, the final meal Jesus shared with his disciples.
Leonardo da Vinci's "L'Ultima Cena," as it was originally known, was far from the first depiction, but none of the works that came before it embodied the Christian mystery as fully.
In the five centuries since, the mural, painted on the end wall of a dining hall in Milan, has proliferated to a degree that even da Vinci, with his famous powers of imagination, could not have envisioned.
"The Last Supper" has become one of the most universally recognized artworks, hanging in countless dining rooms around the world.
It also is one of the most perpetually imitated and copied works of art.
In it, Jesus is seated in resigned sadness at the center of the long table, having just uttered the news: "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me" (John 13:21).
Emotion jars the disciples to either side of Christ, emanating outward from that core of calm in uniquely human waves of confusion, shock, outrage, fear, denial, rage and heartbreak.
Almost immediately upon its completion in 1498, it was clear that something was singularly numinous about this artwork.
As if trying to come to grips with its potency, painters and draughtsmen began scrutinizing and copying it, with the artists influenced as varied as Rubens, Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Poussin, Dali, Warhol and a spate of contemporary artists.
More recently subsumed into popular culture and kitsch, the image can be found on lunch boxes and bread plates, in needlework kits and jigsaw puzzles, on lacquered wood and velvet, and in films such as Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H" and Luis Bunuel's "Viridiana."
What would Leonardo have thought of the dusty men in leather vests, with bare chests and feet, sitting in the grass imitating his composition in the rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar" before singing, "What's that in the bread, it's gone to my head"?
His painting has endured indignities, much like his "Mona Lisa," with Jesus and the apostles flippantly or satirically swapped out for Hostess Twinkies, feminist icons, the cast of "The Sopranos," a Homer Simpson Pez dispenser paired with "Star Wars" action figures, comic book superheroes, Israeli soldiers, corporate icons such as Mrs. Butterworth and Tony the Tiger, and portraits of Mao Tse-tung, among many — many — other things.
Distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information Services.
