republic of veniceconcept:movement high renaissance

The Last Supper (Tintoretto)

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Oil on canvas by Jacopo Tintoretto, 1592-1594. Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. Completed in the year of Tintoretto's death. A dramatic Mannerist/Late Renaissance interpretation of the Last Supper in deep diagonal perspective, suffused with supernatural light.

Notes

·Tintoretto painted three versions of the Last Supper over his career; this is the last and most visionary.
·The table recedes in a sharp diagonal perspective away from the viewer — completely inverting the frontal, symmetrical composition of Leonardo's Last Supper (1498), which this work implicitly contests.
·Supernatural light emanates from Christ and from oil-lamp halos around the disciples; smoky, half-materialised angels swirl in the upper space.
·The setting is a tavern interior populated by servants and common people, democratising the sacred narrative.
·Tintoretto died in 1594, the year this work was installed at San Giorgio Maggiore.