Da Vinci's Last Supper

[MagicKirk]

Hi. I am posting this here because I didn’t see a better sub-forum for this. I also searched the archives and couldn’t find this. Today my daughter came home from her Humanities class where they discussed Da Vinci and Michelangelo. In light of the Da Vinci Code interpretations of some things I listened carefully.
The most bothersome thing that I heard was that St. Peter holds a knife menacingly pointed at another apostle while glaring toward Jesus. St. Peter allegedly represents the Catholic Church and allegedly Da Vinci was “dissing” the pope. I have a vague memory that Dan Brown pointed out the same thing in the Da Vinci Code. Since so much of the Code has been refuted, I thought that perhaps this allegation is also untrue. However, as noted above, I couldn’t find it on old threads. I suspect that there are people on CAF that are knowledgeable on this subject.
While I’m on the subject, her teacher also made other observations that the teacher stated were odd, but he did not seem to link those observations with any symbolism. He thought that it was odd that Da Vinci painted leaven bread rather than unleavened bread (I agree). He stated that there are twelve wine glasses when there should have been 13 (I checked on Google images and I’m hard pressed to identify even 12 glasses - also, the glasses appear to be made of glass. Wouldn’t that be uncommon for the time?). Lastly, the teacher stated that the outdoors should show the sun setting (I’m not sure that it necessarily doesn’t from looking at it on Google images)

 

[MagicKirk]

Also in regard to the wine glasses… It seems that there shouldn’t have been any glasses present since at Da Vinci’s time the drinking of the consecrated wine would have been from a chalice (I assume).

 

[Charlie_Zeaiter]

My understanding is that “The Last Supper” really isn’t about the meal at all.

The painting depicts the picture of when Jesus said one of you will deny me. Da Vinci is merely painting a picture of Luke 16:33 (Peter spoke up and said to Jesus, “I will never leave you, even though all the rest do!”). What a liar Peter was! (OK, perhaps liar is a harsh word. I’m just trying to be dramatic like Da Vinci.)

 

[AMDGtoo]

Amy Welborn’s De-Coding Da Vinci includes a bit about the painting, The Last Supper. There is mention of a disembodied hand (only early copies of The Last Supper shows that it belonged to Peter and then probably in reference to him drawing a sword to protect Jesus), wielding a knife and the fact that there was no chalice. The book states that the painting is not about the Institution of the Eucharist, but instead the moment described in John 13:21-24.

Welborn suggests reading more about Leonardo da Vinci–the artist and the man.

 

[strngrnrth]

One of the most annoying things about the DaVinci Code is that it got people calling him DaVinci. His name is Leonardo. He was never known as DaVinci. I actually found this site a year ago while recreationally debunking the DaVinci Code. I take up some fish-in-a-barrel types of hobbies like that when I have too much time on my hands.
The CA home page has plenty about it.

 

[ralphinal]

If you want to get technical, for all of his genious, Leonardo Da Vinci was not interested at all in history. It is a modern suggestion to say that there are any historical connotations in his art.