Original subtitles

The most important thing about this painting,

this is a work of an artistic genius.

He was the great polymath of his day.

He understood all of the rules of painting,

he understood all of the rules of perspective.

This is quite a geometrical painting.

It transcends religion.

1495, Milan.

Brush in hand, Leonardo da Vinci leaned into the wall,

lost in the chaos of 13 voices.

Every single figure in this is an individual.

Part of that is conveyed through his groupings of the apostles.

He paints in bursts,

layering emotion, invention, betrayal,

using his genius to bring this moment of theology to life.

This painting for Leonardo is an intellectual exercise.

It's almost as though he's throwing everything in the kitchen sink.

And that's the great thing about this painting.

After three years, his mural was complete.

And perhaps never again would art capture

such a powerful moment as the Last Supper.

I saw this painting last year for the first time

and it affected me really deeply, emotionally.

One thing people need to understand is that

this painting is in a specific spot in a specific church.

It was actually made for the dining room for the monks.

And so, of course, they're breaking bread with Christ.

That's the whole concept behind it.

I think when you go into the room that was the refectory,

that's now a museum in Santa Maria delle Grazie,

there's this sense of being overawed.

It's a dark space, a simple space,

but you are just enraptured

by how realistic and how tangible this painting is.

It's 500 years old, yet it's so vivid and so modern.

But when you see this at the end of the room,

you'll see that the perspective works with the actual room it's in.

So it's so beyond clever.

It's so beyond technical mastery.

And then on the other side of the dining room,

there was a crucifixion,

which was done at the same time as this was.

So if you switched around and went behind Christ's shoulder

and looked over his shoulder, he's looking at the events

of the next day, which is his own crucifixion.

So it's super powerful in its position

and that makes it important.

Leonardo da Vinci is widely regarded

as the greatest painter in history,

celebrated for his timeless masterpieces

that continue to captivate audiences around the world.

But what makes The Last Supper stand out

as one of the most extraordinary works?

Let's start with the man himself to find out.

Today we remember Leonardo da Vinci most famously for his painting,

for being a draftsman.

But, of course, he was the great polymath of his day.

Leonardo was a Renaissance man.

So, a Renaissance man means that they had many, many interests,

many, many ideas, including philosophy.

He was interested in geometry.

Anatomy. He understood science.

He was interested in the natural world.

He was interested in engineering, hydraulics.

Everything. So, he was good at everything, basically.

He's not described as being just an artist.

He's described as being the artist and engineer to the Duke.

This Duke was a man called Ludovico Sforza.

And thanks to him, we get The Last Supper.

So, Ludovico Sforza, the ruler of Milan,

the man who commissioned this painting,

is a man who spent 75% of his annual budget on warfare.

This period in history is when almost everywhere in Italy

was at war with somewhere else in Italy.

They were all separate city-states.

And so he was brought over to design war machines for Sforza.

He needs a man who is able to design weapons,

who is essentially an engineer.

And for Leonardo, I think there's this sense

of, perhaps, frustration when he's working for the Duke,

in that so much of what he is doing is ephemeral.

It might be used to make a weapon and then it's gone.

A drawing, a design that's used

to make some kind of fortification and then it's gone.

One of the other things he did for Sforza,

he was in charge of all the theatrical productions,

so he was the master of ceremonies, really.

He's designing the plays, he's designing the costumes,

he's designing the sets.

And entertainment and theatrical productions and then they're gone.

And he wants something that is going to be long-lasting,

something, really, to make his name in Milan,

which he hasn't done so far.

I think almost there's a little bit of a chip on his shoulder

because the huge project that he was really hoping

would make his name, in fact, never came to anything.

And that was a huge equestrian monument

that, had it been completed,

would've weighed 75 tonnes of bronze,

but, sadly, it came to nothing.

All that Leonardo actually completed was the clay model.

As with many, many Leonardo projects,

they all remained unfinished projects.

So, Ludovico Sforza commissioned Leonardo to create a mural

as a symbolic centrepiece for the monks.

This was his big opportunity and he certainly didn't hold back.

Using his genius, he poured his devotion into every detail.

So, I think Leonardo feels this great sense of frustration

and that's why he ploughs so much energy into The Last Supper.

Leonardo was meticulous.

He worked slowly and thoughtfully.

Over the course of roughly three years, he completed the painting.

But what is it that made The Last Supper be hailed

as a masterpiece of genius?

What makes this painting so different

is that it transcends religion.

It transcends religion and it's a psychological masterpiece.

And I think this goes back to his theatre work as well,

but I also think it's to do with the fact

that he thought movement came from the soul as well.

So every single figure in this is an individual.

It's very, very different from other portrayals of The Last Supper.

Now, if you compare this view of The Last Supper with others,

which Leonardo would've been very familiar with,

such as Ghirlandaio's Last Supper,

such as Taddeo Gaddi's Last Supper in Santa Croce,

which is a little bit earlier...

All of these others, if you look at the apostles,

they all look quite similar.

They're all structured, they're all quite formal and upright.

There's no variation of movement.

Look at earlier pictures of The Last Supper

and you'll see they're all clustered in together,

they're all connected closely together

and they're all identical, it's hard to tell them apart.

But in this particular one, everyone is an individual

and that means we can connect with them

and that makes it a really interesting painting.

It's extremely dramatic, and part of that is conveyed

through his groupings of the apostles.

I think this is a masterclass in understanding gestures.

And if you look at their expressions,

and particularly their gestures,

they're all doing something a little bit different.

It's extremely dynamic

and it seems to be quite spontaneous and quite explosive.

Christ is very calm in the middle

and all of the others are gesturing or the shock of Christ saying,

"One of you will betray me."

Now there are 12 apostles

and they're structured into four groups of three.

And it's clearly divided,

so that all of them are focusing towards Christ.

And each of these groups seems to be a self-contained group.

From the three figures on the left, including Bartholomew,

who have these expressions almost of disbelief,

to the second group.

The second group, the central figure is St Peter

and he looks as though he's ready to attack

whoever the betrayer is, because this is the moment

where Christ has said, "One of you is going to betray me."

He's got a knife in his hand and you might imagine

that he's about to get up and attack whoever the betrayer would be.

And that betrayer, who, unbeknownst to St Peter,

would be shrinking into his seat right next to him.

One of the most intriguing and I think brilliantly dramatic choices

that Leonardo makes is his placement of Judas.

The vast majority of portrayals of The Last Supper,

Judas is on this side of the table.

It's a way of distinguishing him.

It's a way of identifying him

as being the one who is the betrayer.

But here, as the viewer, we are caught up in the disbelief

and we are caught up in the question mark,

because we too are forced

to try and identify who the betrayer might be.

It's not made obvious to us.

Judas is the key to this painting

because he's incorporated in the 13 figures.

He's in the shadows, but he's incorporated.

Not only has he put him on the other side of the table,

he's put him to Christ's right hand.

The right hand of Christ is the place of honour,

it's the most important.

Actually, John is the one that's right next to Christ,

but just two along from him we find Judas.

So, the fear and the distrust and the betrayal

comes from within the group

and that changes the psychology of the painting.

So, how can we identify Judas?

We can identify him in a number of ways.

He is reaching out towards a bowl

and Christ is also reaching to that bowl.

And in the Bible we are told

that he who dips his hand in the bowl will betray me.

And you can see him reaching forward

and then there's a sense of, "Maybe I'm not going to do it after all."

And then Christ reaching forward, but not quite touching the bowl.

And there's a sense of tension in Christ's right hand there.

So there's a moment of tension on the table.

But also, if you look closely...

And it's more evident

in reproductions of the painting by other artists.

...he's knocking over a salt cellar.

Even today it's bad luck, isn't it, if you knock over the salt.

And that superstition existed at that period as well.

So there are all these clues to his identity,

but he's not made it obvious.

The final clue that this is Judas is in his right hand.

He is clutching a bag of silver,

the very bribe he received to betray Jesus.

I think the third group is perhaps the most powerful,

for me, the most beautiful.

You have St Thomas, who has an intriguing gesture.

He's pointing up to the sky...

...as if to challenge the authority of God,

as if to question, "How can God let this happen?"

And then next to him, the figure of James,

who is literally throwing his arms out.

It's such an expressive gesture, he cannot believe what he's hearing.

These 13 figures aren't placed at random.

They're part of a meticulously planned composition.

Leonardo used geometry and mathematical precision

to bring this powerful moment to life.

He understood all of the rules of painting.

He understood all of the rules of perspective.

And he also understood how to break those rules.

If we look at this painting,

that table is far too wide for the room

and that's how he manages to fit 13 people across that table.

And he's done this very, very cleverly by focusing on Christ.

We have to go back to perspective on this for the composition.

The perspective is really, really important.

It comes from Christ's right temple.

Everything comes from Christ.

So, he's using mathematics to structure the painting,

but he's also interested in geometry.

This is quite a geometrical painting.

There is an equilateral triangle.

If you take the lines of the orthogonals,

bringing you from the coffered ceiling on either side,

that takes you down to just at the bottom of Christ.

So you've got an inverted equilateral triangle there.

You have another triangle, which is implied,

if you look from Christ's head, alongside either arm.

So you have triangles,

you have squares,

you have pentagons.

Now, I'm going to talk about a part of the painting

that we don't see so often or we don't think about so often,

because The Last Supper isn't just a rectangle.

The Last Supper also contains three lunettes over the painting

and the central lunette contains the coat of arms of Ludovico Sforza,

the man who paid for the work.

If you take the line of that lunette and you continue it down,

you very much have an implied circle.

Why would he do that?

Well, there was a belief

that various geometrical shapes had divine meaning.

So, the equilateral triangle is symbolic of the Trinity.

The pentagon is symbolic of the five wounds of Christ.

The circle, which is implied by the lunette above the painting,

is symbolic of eternity and thereby God,

because it has no beginning and no end.

I'm not a great one for conspiracy theories,

and this is one of those paintings

that has many, many conspiracy theories.

So, I'm not going to talk about all of them,

but I'll talk about the most important one

and that is the idea that Mary Magdalene is in this painting,

that there's a woman in this painting.

And that figure in the painting is John.

So, John in this painting is supposedly Mary Magdalene.

But we can look at depictions of John

going right back to the tenth century, where John is young.

He's Christ's favourite disciple.

He's young and therefore he doesn't have a beard.

It's a way of people recognising straightaway

the concept of somebody.

And quite often during the Renaissance,

if you look at other Leonardo paintings

or paintings by other Renaissance masters,

the younger boys tended to be feminised

and it's the idea of idealised beauty.

So, the idea that this is a woman in the painting

is absolute nonsense.

There are lots of ideas and suggestions

as to, you know, is the figure of John the Evangelist

actually Mary Magdalene?

There are a lot of theories which are quite fanciful,

but I think that Leonardo made this painting

with various levels of meaning and symbolism attached,

some of which have been unravelled,

some of which, perhaps, are yet to be unravelled.

From the missing chalice to the hidden symbolism,

The Last Supper is shrouded in mystery.

It invites countless questions and theories,

a fascination that has helped preserve its relevance

and captivation even to this day.

There are lots and lots of theories about this painting,

but I think people just forget the most important thing

about this painting is that it's a work of genius.

This is a work of an artistic genius

and all of these other theories behind it

are just 20th-century nonsense.

I think it's also quite interesting to touch upon the possibility

that there is a musical connection in this painting.

Leonardo da Vinci's activities as a musician are less well-recorded,

but what is quite interesting is that he seems, perhaps,

to have come to the Sforza court in Milan

in his capacity both as a painter and a musician.

We know that he wrote music,

although, sadly, none of that music has come down to us.

So the idea that he might be bringing musical theory

into his paintings is not so remote as we might imagine.

And there's a purgatory drawing for this painting,

which is in the Royal Collection,

which has a series of numbers to one side,

which seem to relate to musical ratios

or musical proportions,

such as the octave, fourths and fifths.

Now, if you look at these tapestries on either side of the wall,

I know they look like huge doors, huge cavernous doors,

but, originally, these were tapestries.

Very, very much of the painting, sadly, has been lost.

And their relation, their proportion to one another

seems to be structured according to musical proportions,

fourths and fifths and octaves.

Leonardo talks about correlation

between visual proportions and ratios and musical ratios

in his writings, so I don't think it would come as any surprise

to think that he would be doing this in a work of art as well.

Despite its brilliance,

The Last Supper has suffered greatly over the centuries.

Environmental damage and the fragile technique Leonardo used

has left the painting faded and flaking.

So, normally, with a painting like this,

it would've been done on fresh plaster,

hence the term "fresco", meaning "fresh" in Italian.

So, it would've been done on plaster, wet plaster,

whereas he does this on dry plaster.

And that's gonna cause a huge, huge problem

because this was in the dining room of the refectory

and behind this specific painting was the kitchen

and the kitchen is gonna cause damp.

So you're gonna get a lot of damp coming through

and that's gonna make the fresco fall off.

So, just 20 years after Leonardo completed The Last Supper,

the painting began to flake and deteriorate.

And yet, despite its fragile state,

The Last Supper has endured as a deeply spiritual masterpiece,

transcending the damage and decay.

I'm also very moved when we consider the history of the painting

because it has suffered so much with the vicissitudes of time

and damage and botched restoration attempts

and bombing during the Second World War.

It's just extraordinary that it has survived.

So I think it's a very moving experience.

But thanks to the tireless dedication of modern restorers,

most notably Pinin Brambilla-Barcelon,

who spent over 20 years carefully preserving what remained,

this masterpiece still stands

as a powerful window into Leonardo's vision.

So, as you reflect on its beauty,

remember that what we see today

is a testament not only to the artist,

but to those who fought to keep his work alive.

This is a painting that has been restored so many times.

It was nearly destroyed during World War II.

Experts estimate that only about 20% to 25% of this painting

is actually by Leonardo.

But the most important thing is that 25% of Leonardo

is better than 100% of most other artists.

And that's the great thing about this painting.

Although Leonardo never painted another mural again,

it was this painting that forever immortalised his genius.

A timeless symbol of faith, human connection

and the profound spirit that continues to inspire

all who encounter The Last Supper.

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