Leonardo: The Last Supper

by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon, Pietro C. Marani

Buy new: $95.00 $79.96 Buy used: $64.00

Editorial Reviews

Leonardo's The Last Supper, painted in tempera on the damp walls of a dining room for the Dominican monks of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan, began falling apart in his lifetime. Five centuries of dust, mildew, and bad treatment (including vandalism by French 18th-century troops, Allied bombs in World War II, and various ham-handed attempts at cleaning and repainting) have only made things worse. The most recent restoration team went about the job with surgical precision, beginning in 1977. While much of the original is irrevocably lost, the fragments of paint that remain still form a deeply evocative and exquisitely rendered composition, and many of the faces have gained increased visibility and plasticity. More than 200 full-color pages painstakingly document every inch of the ghostly surface. Beginning with full views, the focus narrows until each image is presented in its actual size, interleaved with an all-black page for heightened clarity. To look so closely at the fragile network of paint flecks is to be acutely aware of the mystery of perception--that these flecks of color allow us to read each apostle's mood and personality as they reacted to Christ's words ("One of you will betray me"). The commentary, printed in pleasingly large type and fluidly translated from the Italian, is segregated from the major reproductions, allowing the fresco to speak for itself. An introductory text traces the history of the painting and its restorations, as well as shifts in critical opinion. In a lengthy, generously illustrated section at the back of the book, chief curator Pinin Brambilla Barcilon explains how she restored each portion of the masterwork. While this may be more than the casual reader cares to know, extraordinary attention to detail is one of the hallmarks of both the project and the book. --Cathy Curtis

Customer Reviews

Superb effort, 2001-03-09

For those who are interested in the highly controversial world of art conservation/restoration, this book is a must. For the first time in English, we have an in-depth account of the 20-plus year intervention on Leonardo's masterpiece, the Last Supper. The project, applauded by some and decried by many, is documented here with hundreds of color illustrations and an essay by the chief conservator of the project. This is largely the Italians' point of view, which is highly controversial. But as the English-language editors say in their preface, it is important that all informed voices be heard in the debate as to the originality of Leonardo's hand and just what sort of intervention was appropriate to this situation.

definitive and exquisite!, 2001-03-02

The focus of this book is the controversial restoration of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, an icon of Renaissance art and a fresco that was in trouble from the time Leonardo painted it using nontraditional fresco techniques. The difficulty of the restoration just completed lay in the problems of the original, which began to flake and and self-destruct soon after its completion. A number of attempts at restoration over the past several hundred years resulted in the destruction and/or replacement of a good deal of the original, and the contemporary restoration was an attempt to undo past mistakes and reveal as much as possible of the remaining original while preserving the piece. The extraordinary color images in this book depict virtually every square inch of the fresco before, during, and after the just-completed restoration. It is the best documentation we will ever have of a remarkable work and the struggle to keep it from vanishing.