Historical Pers p e c t i v e The Twilight of Presence Pictorialized Illumination in  Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper

J u s t i n U n d e r h i l l

This essay explores the relationship between pictures and the lighting conditions in which they were originally viewed. The theoretical ACT R

T interrelationship between brightness, illumination and depiction is S explored in a case study of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper mural at the AB refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Advanced rendering software allows for the reconstruction of the refectory as it stood when Leonardo painted The Last Supper and demonstrates the complex interaction between light and space in the mural. This analysis illustrates how digital humanities might bridge traditional art-historical methods and forensic visualization.

This essay explores the phenomenological interaction of light and pictures. This phenomenon, which I will call pictorial­ ized illumination, is temporally extended; we watch depicted light in the picture and the natural illumination of the picture converge in real time. In these special but important cases, the luminance of the depiction—its brightness—is seen as a function of illuminance, the light arriving at the surface of the picture. When we watch a picture depict a light source that is located in real space (as distinct from being merely illumi- nated by it), we are pictorializing illumination. For example, Giotto’s Last Judgment on the west wall of the Cappella degli Scrovegni is usually lit by ambient light (Fig. 1). However, the composition of the lower portion of the fresco was con- figured such that it would be specially illuminated during morning Mass on the feast day of the Annunciation, the day on which the chapel was dedicated (Fig. 2). The dedication Fig. 1. Giotto di Bondone, The Last Judgment, fresco, 1000 × 840 cm, c. 1305. of the chapel is depicted at the bottom of the painting, where Padua, Italy: Cappella degli Scrovegni. (© 2015. Photo Scala, Florence) the patron, Enrico Scrovegni, presents a model of the build- ing to the Virgin and her attendants. In early morning of 25 March 1305, a beam of light projected through a window on illumination, the directly illuminated model of the chapel the south wall passed through the space between Scrovegni clearly implies a light source above and to the viewer’s left— and the outstretched hands of the Virgin as if to enter the that is, a window in the south wall. In this way, pictorialized model chapel [1]. While no directional light source is im- illumination enriched the spatial and symbolic aspects of plied when one views the depiction of the chapel in ambient the dedication scene for those watching the fresco during a liturgically significant time period. Most pictures are not as fortunate as Giotto’s Last Judg­ Justin Underhill (lecturer), Digital Art History, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A. Email: [email protected]. ment. Even if they remain in their original location, the See mitpressjournals.org/toc/leon/52/1 for supplemental files associated with sites that house them have been dramatically altered such this issue. that the factors originally coordinated for pictorialized il-

44 LEONARDO, Vol. 52, No. 1, pp. 44–53, 2019 doi:10.1162/LEON_a_01343 ©2019 ISAST

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01343 by guest on 29 September 2021 Pictorialized Illumination in The Last Supper I will now consider a picture whose perspectival construc- tion allowed it to oscillate between two image modalities as a function of illumination: Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper mural at the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan (Fig. 3). After demonstrating how the original architecture of the refectory enabled different virtual configurations to emerge as aspects of the illuminated picture, I analyze these instances of pictorialized illumination relative to the painting’s complicated iconographic program. My forensic analysis follows from (and augments) Lillian Schwartz’s pioneering visualization of the sightlines and perspective of The Last Supper, the results of which were published in this journal some 30 years ago [4]. Leonardo’s mural centers on the meal Christ shared with his apostles the night before his arrest and crucifixion, as described in the Synoptic Gospels [5]. Christ’s distribution Fig. 2. Pictorialized illumination in Giotto’s Last Judgment, Fig. 17 from Laura Jacobus, “Giotto’s Annunciation in the Arena Chapel, Padua,” of bread and wine among the apostles was subsequently The Art Bulletin 81, No. 1, 93–107 (1999). (© 2015, Photo Scala, Florence. taken as the first Eucharist, as described in the First Epistle Photo: Laura Jacobus.) to the Corinthians [6]. The specific moment Leonardo de- picts follows from the announcement that a member of the lumination—such as archaeoastronomical alignments and dinner party will betray him. Christ’s words are met with fenestration—no longer register the original parameters of grief, shock and disbelief by the apostles (with the excep- illumination. Fortunately, these parameters can be recon- tion of Judas, who rests his elbow on the table to the left of structed by a variety of rendering programs—high-end soft- Christ). Leo­nardo meticulously choreographed the scene so ware used by architects and computer graphics professionals that the range of these emotions registers in the bodies of his to model the behavior of light realistically. For simulations followers. The figures frame a parapet-like table that spans of daylight, these programs account for longitude, latitude, the width of the painting, which effectively demarcates the date and orientation relative to the cardinal directions [2]. boundary between the real space of the refectory and the They register changes in the apparent brightness of an object depicted space of the Roman dining hall, or coenaculum. by correlating its reflectance (the amount of light an object The eastern and western walls of the dining room feature reflects) with its illumination (the amount of light that falls elaborate tapestries and are each pierced with three doors. upon the surface of the object). While digital renderings are The rear wall features windows to either side of Christ and a common tools in architectural and archaeological recon- door directly behind him. Each triad of apertures serves as a struction, they remain underutilized by historians of visual subtle reference to the Trinity. Additionally, this symbolism is culture. However, the computational determination of lu- reinforced by Christ’s pose; his outstretched hands form the minance allows historians to reconstruct transformations of sides of a triangle, with his head (and the picture’s vanishing pictorial space catalyzed by light [3]. point) at its apex [7]. The Cappella degli Scrovegni is temporally the simplest imaginable archaeoastronomic configuration of virtual space: A single alignment that occurs once a year results in pictorialized illumination that observers standing before Giotto’s Last Judgment a day before or a day after the feast of the Annunciation would not have experienced. It is pos- sible, however, that pictorialized illumination can emerge as a function of multiple alignments experienced at many different times of the day or year, or possibly throughout. Rendering allows us to simulate the full range of illumina- tion parameters for the solar year, any one of which poten- tially has spatial or symbolic significance like that we have remarked for Giotto. This is an open question that requires case-by-case investigation. Given the world-historical rec­ ord, dates on which the axial tilt of the earth toward the sun is at its greatest—the summer and winter solstices—and the dates on which the intersection of the celestial equator and

the ecliptic result in no tilt toward or away from the sun—the Fig. 3. Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, oil on gesso, 882 × 459 cm, equinoxes—could turn out to have such status. Again, this c. 1495–1498. Milan: Santa Maria delle Grazie. (© 2015. Photo Scala, remains open to art-historical debate. ­Florence, courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali)

Underhill, The Twilight of Presence 45

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01343 by guest on 29 September 2021 apostles. These figures are partially illuminated by the fourth source of depicted light, located directly in front of the pic- ture plane. It causes the shadows back cast by the tablecloth (onto the legs of the seated figures), Bartholomew’s chair and the two legs of the table visible on the left side of the mural. The fifth depicted light illuminates the table laterally from above and to the left of the viewer. The shadows cast onto the table as a result of the lateral light source are well pre- served—the pewter plates, loaves of bread and the hands of the figures leaning over the table all cast shadows to the beholder’s right. The lateral light also produces some of the shadows cast in the foreground of the painting. Although the ground depicted below the table is heavily abraded (most of the details have been lost), some trace of the shadows that Fig. 4. Reconstruction of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in 1495, Leonardo painted remains there. For example, the two right- Fig. 14 from Gisberto Martelli, “Il refettorio di Santa Maria Delle Grazie in most legs of the table and Simon’s stool cast shadows, and a Milano e il restauro di Luca Beltrami Nell’ultimo decennio dell’ottocento,” shadow attached to the right foot of St. Bartholomew also Bolletino­ d’arte 6 (1980) pp. 55–72. (© Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Tourism) remains visible. This fifth light source is unpictured, and the angle at which The refectory that houses the mural today has been sub- cast shadows caused by it might suggest that it originates stantially altered since Leonardo painted the mural. As is from a window high in the wall. The depicted light might well known, bombing during the Second World War heavily correspond to the real window that is nearest to the mural damaged the building; in rebuilding, architects thickened the in the western wall. However, as I shall show, Leonardo has walls to add additional structural support [8]. The fenestra- configured the depicted space such that this virtual window tion has also changed; in the sixteenth century, the original may or may not be located in real space, depending on how windows were filled in and new ones were installed around illumination was pictorialized. them [9]. However, portions of the original windowsills The organization of perspective inThe Last Supper is am- have been discovered in subsequent restorations, and these biguous. This has been noted by many viewers, who have provided the basis for Gisberto Martelli’s reconstruction of often noticed pictorial idiosyncrasies while viewing the work the original structure (Fig. 4). I have used Martelli’s mea- in situ that tend to be downplayed or occluded entirely in surements to place the windows of my reconstruction of printed or photographic reproductions [14]. Most of the con- the refectory as it stood in 1498, when The Last Supper was fusion stems from the fact that the orthogonals of the floor completed. of the coenaculum indicate that it is wider than the view of Leonardo’s ongoing study of the nature of light and the it framed by the picture plane, while the orthogonals of the pictorial description of its effects is reflected in copious notes tapestries and ceiling seem to indicate that these surfaces are and drawings, some of which form the basis for the theoreti- fully enclosed by the view that is framed by the picture plane: cal propositions on the subject advanced in his Treatise on The architrave and tapestries seem to meet at right angles, Painting [10]. Moreover, he seems to have taken an active and the ceiling (a grid six modules wide and six deep, like the interest in the real light that illuminated The Last Supper. tiled floor) seems to be shown in its entirety [15]. Leonardo worked on the mural continuously for three years Only two possible solutions would allow us to construe the (from 1495 to 1498), and we are told by Matteo Bandello, a perspective of The Last Supper as a representation of a physi- writer who visited the refectory while Leonardo was working cally possible space. One solution requires that only part of on the mural, that he would visit the mural at different times the ceiling be pictured—that the architrave of the refectory of day, making adjustments to the picture as he saw fit [11]. functions to block out portions of both the ceiling and the His concerns over the lighting of the mural may be reflected walls. As reconstructed by Francis Naumann, the space of by a record of payment from 1497 to a stonemason, which The Last Supper can only be considered perspectivally sound indicates that adjustments were made to a window while the if we imagine that the architrave of the refectory is identical mural was being painted [12]. Leonardo was especially inter- to an unpictured corner pier that abuts the two corners of ested in lighting effects particular to late afternoon (the time the depicted room closest to the viewer (Fig. 5, left; Fig. 6a). indicated by the internal lighting of the painting), when he Although this solution is the one most commonly accepted believed that the angle and quality of sunlight falling on the by scholars, it problematizes other aspects of the perspectival surface of an object create the distribution of shadow most construction. If the orthogonals of the architecture of the conducive to depicting the human figure [13]. coenaculum describe a room with parallel sides, we must ac- In The Last Supper, there are five sources of depicted light. cept that the tapestries on each wall are different sizes; the Three windows in the back of thecoenaculum illuminate the further they are from the viewer, the greater their real size ceiling beams and walls. The light from these windows has (Fig. 7) [16]. attenuated by the time it reaches the table—there is no back- If we understand the ceiling to terminate where its orthog- lighting to obscure the strong modeling of Christ and the onals intersect the picture plane, we pictorialize a trapezoidal

46 Underhill, The Twilight of Presence

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01343 by guest on 29 September 2021 a

Fig. 5. Possible interpretations b of the walls in The Last Supper: The wall is pictured either in its entirety (right) or partially obscured by corner piers (left). Adapted from Figs 98, 99 and 106 from Leo Steinberg, Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper (New York: Zone Books, 2001). (© Justin Underhill)

floor plan (Fig. 5, right; Fig. 6b). Since the orthogonals that describe the architecture of the coenaculum in this view do not describe walls that are parallel to one another, this solu- tion allows us to perceive the tapestries to be uniform in size. Leonardo seems to have configured each of these perspec- Fig. 6. (a): Cuboid configuration of space in The Last Supper. tival possibilities as functions of pictorialized illumination. (b): Trapezoidal configuration of space in The Last Supper. Adapted from Carlo Pedretti, Leonardo: A Study in Chronology and Style (Berkeley: University That is, depending on illumination, either one of these pos- of California Press, 1973) pp. 70–71. (© Justin Underhill) sibilities could be pictorialized at different times. For any one of the many configurations of real light that are possible within the refectory, one of two permutations of pictorial- Fig. 7. Plan and elevation of the illusionistic chamber of The Last Supper with projection of the tapestries from the distance point, Fig. 14 from Francis ized illumination would be visible: The lateral light source Naumann “The ‘Costruzione Legittima’ in the Reconstruction of Leonardo da could appear to come from behind the corner piers (as an Vinci’s ‘Last Supper,’ ” Arte lombarda 52 (1979) pp. 63–89. (Photo © Francis M. Naumann)

Underhill, The Twilight of Presence 47

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01343 by guest on 29 September 2021 Fig. 9. Author’s reconstruction, pictorialized illumination in Leonardo’s Last Supper (cuboid configuration). (© Justin Underhill)

0:00–0:06, 0:12–0:20 in the equinox simulation [Video B]; Fig. 8. Author’s reconstruction, pictorialized illumination in Leonardo’s Last Supper (trapezoidal configuration). (© Justin Underhill) and all the summer solstice simulation [Video C]). However, as I describe in detail below, “spotlight” effects are pictorial- ized in the morning and late afternoon, when sunlight passes unpictured window) or in front of the painting (pictorialized through windows in the eastern and western walls of the as a function of the real window nearest the painting on the refectory. west wall of the refectory). When the painting is directly illu- During winter (and throughout the year at midday) the minated, one sees the room in its trapezoidal configuration; refectory is rather dark, and artificial light was likely used at the light depicted in the mural is not possible if the viewer these times. However, since no evidence for the placement visualizes the corner piers, since these piers would partially of original light fixtures survives, I have omitted these from obstruct the light streaming into the coenaculum from the my reconstruction. Although these artificial lights would window such that the shadows cast on the table would not have partially offset the dramatic “spotlight” effect of light be possible, and it would be necessary to have a shadow cast projected through the refectory windows, rays of sunlight by the pier (see Fig. 8). In this trapezoidal coenaculum, light in a dark room would have been nonetheless substantially streams directly from the refectory into the unobstructed brighter than the light produced by candles or oil lamps (and table space of Christ and the apostles. In this case, a real light thus just as noticeable, if not more so). source in the room (the western window closest to the north- When the diurnal path of the sun is lowest in the sky, at the ern wall) pictorializes some of the light depicted in the mural. winter solstice, rays of sunlight streaming onto the painting When the painting is not directly illuminated, one can vi- through three eastern windows pass over the painting early sualize the corner piers as obstructing a portion of the left in the morning (0:00–0:08 in Video A; Fig. 10a–d). The first wall that contains a hidden window (Fig. 9). As is evident in a ray of light that appears passes over the depicted ceiling of comparison of Figs 8 and 9, the cuboid pictorialization of The the coenaculum and disappears when its edge vertically aligns Last Supper leaves part of the walls of the coenaculum unpic- with the rightmost edge of a tapestry on the eastern wall. The tured (blocked by the piers), while the trapezoidal pictorial- second ray of light that appears passes over the back wall of ization does not. In the cuboid configuration, a considerable the coenaculum until it reaches the edge of the central win- section of the wall is obscured—1.2 m, enough for a small dow and disappears (seemingly exiting through the window). window. (The openings of the original windows in Martelli’s A third ray of light passes over Bartholomew before align- reconstruction of the refectory are about 1.14 m wide.) ing with the door closest to the viewer on the western wall Having described the two versions of virtual space that The and disappearing. In the late afternoon, sunlight projected Last Supper permits (and perhaps oscillates between), I now through a window in the western wall in the refectory passes turn to the actual play of light within the refectory through- over the depicted ceiling of the coenaculum before disappear- out the year, enabling an iconographic explanation of each ing (0:26–30 in Video A; Fig. 10e–h). version of virtual space in terms of pictorialized illumination. At the vernal and autumnal equinoxes (when the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator and the sun’s apparent altitude Reconstruction of Lighting in the Original is midway between those of the solstices), sunlight projecting Refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie through the eastern window in the morning passes over the I here describe the appearance of The Last Supper at the apostles on the left side of the table and disappears as it aligns winter solstice, vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and sum- with the door depicted in the middle of the eastern wall of the mer solstice (in that order). Throughout much of the year the coenaculum, passing over the portion of the table framed by mural is indirectly illuminated (0:08–0:25 in the simulation Matthew’s outstretched hands (0:06–0:11 in Video B; see Fig. of winter solstice of 1498 [Video A in the supplemental files]; 11a–d). The other patches of sunlight projected through the

48 Underhill, The Twilight of Presence

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01343 by guest on 29 September 2021 a b

c d

e f

g h

Fig. 10. Author’s rendering of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, winter solstice, 1498. (© Justin Underhill)

Underhill, The Twilight of Presence 49

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01343 by guest on 29 September 2021 a b

c d

e f

g h

Fig. 11. Author’s rendering of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, vernal/autumnal equinox, 1498. (© Justin Underhill)

50 Underhill, The Twilight of Presence

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01343 by guest on 29 September 2021 a b

c d

e f

Fig. 12. Author’s rendering of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, summer solstice, 1498. (© Justin Underhill)

eastern windows pass over the north wall (below the mural) and disappearance of sunlight projected through the win- and the floor of the refectory and disappear directly below dows (Video C; see Fig. 12a–f). In the morning, swathes of Christ’s outstretched right hand. In the afternoon, a patch of sunlight pass down the western wall and disappear at points sunlight emerges through the rear door of the western wall continuous with the axis defined by Christ’s left hand; in the of the coenaculum; the other patches of projected sunlight ap- afternoon, light emerges along an axis defined by his right pear directly below Christ’s outstretched left hand (0:20–0:26 hand to climb the eastern wall. in Video B; see Fig. 11e–h). In late afternoon on the equinox, Leonardo likely planned the “spotlighting” that configures these lights project onto the eastern wall to align with the the coenaculum as a trapezoid as an effect to be observed by orthogonals of the tapestries depicted on the eastern wall of monks eating in the refectory during winter and spring—The the coenaculum (Fig. 11h). Last Supper would serve as a virtual backdrop to the dining At the summer solstice, when the sun is highest in its di- hall during the portion of the year in which Christ was born urnal motion, the mural is never directly illuminated, but and died. As such, the real light that seems to pass through the outstretched hands of Christ still pace the appearance the coenaculum, entering and exiting through depicted doors,

Underhill, The Twilight of Presence 51

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01343 by guest on 29 September 2021 could be understood as an allegory of transubstantiation; the the mural. Light disappears (and reappears) at points aligned Holy Spirit passes over the group as Christ reaches for the with the outstretched hands of Christ. The places on the wall bread and wine [17]. This effect would have been particularly at which these rays of light appear and disappear imply the poignant in the spring, the time during which the Last Sup- base of a triangle, with Christ at its apex. These light effects per actually occurred; light passes over the table directly in extend that triangle—perfectly aligned with the orthogonals front of Christ before disappearing. of the picture—into real space. Leonardo could have imag- The trapezoidal floor plan of the directly illuminated con- ined these patches of light would frame figures seated below figuration echoes that of a polygonal apse, an architectural the mural. morphology common to Lombard architecture with which Leonardo would have been well acquainted [18]. Leonardo Conclusion submitted a proposal for the cupola at the Cathedral of Milan One picture, two images. And threaded through each of these in 1487–1488; he may have had its polygonal apse in mind as images is the animating presence of the Eucharist—a repre- a model for the trapezoidal coenaculum [19]. Given that po- sentation, like painting, that will never fully resolve into the lygonal apses are far less common in late fifteenth-century -ar substance of the real. In Leonardo’s Last Supper, the drama chitecture than semicircular apses, Leonardo likely included of transubstantiation is replicated in the very act of seeing. this archaism for iconographic reasons; the Roman dining When we pictorialize the room as cuboid, we observe Christ room becomes an early form of Church architecture before reaching for the bread and wine to conduct the first Com- the viewer’s eyes. In this sense, Leonardo could have been munion. When we pictorialize a trapezoidal plan, a different pictorializing the coenaculum as the first chapel; as the Holy temporality is at work; viewers would see Christ standing Spirit figuratively passed through the room (as pictorialized before a polygonal apse, presenting the sacrament to them. illumination), the space is that of a polygonal apse. Pictorialized illumination partitions virtual space as separate Between late spring and late summer, the painting was moments to be watched, restaged over and over again, as The never directly illuminated. As a result, pictorialized illumi- Last Supper painted in the refectory perpetuated the histori- nation during summer virtualized a cuboid space. These cal Last Supper. “spotlighting” effects augment the iconographic content of

References and Notes working in concert with the real proportions of the refectory accom- modate a wide domain of visual angles. For similar phenomena, see 1 The illumination of the fresco on the feast day of the Annunciation M.H. Pirenne, Optics, Painting, and Photography (London: Cam- was first discussed in Giuliano Romano and Hans Michael Thomas, bridge Univ. Press, 1970) pp. 95–115. “Sul significato di alcuni fenomeni solari che si manifestano nella cappella di Giotto a Padova,” Ateneo Veneto 178 (1991) pp. 213–256. 8 Antonio Migliacci, “Il refettorio di Santa Maria delle Grazie. Opere The relationship between late-medieval Annunciation imagery and di consolidamento statico,” Arte lombarda 62 (1982) pp. 23–30. the staging of the Cappella degli Scrovegni is discussed in Laura Jacobus, “Giotto’s Annunciation in the Arena Chapel, Padua,” The 9 For a detailed chronology of the refectory, see Gisberto Martelli, Art Bulletin 81, No. 1, 93–107 (1999). For more on the relationship be- “Ricerche e precizazioni sull’ambiente del ‘Cenacolo Vinciano’ nel tween depicted light and the iconography of early modern painting, complesso monumentale milanese di S. Maria delle Grazie,” Noti­ see Wolfgang Schöne, Über das Licht in der Malerei (Berlin: Gebr. ziario delle Banca Popolare di Sondrio 18 (1978) pp. 31–49; and Gis- Mann, 1954); Millard Meiss, “Light as Form and Symbol in Some berto Martelli, “Il refettorio di Santa Maria Delle Grazie in Milano e Fifteenth-Century Paintings,” The Art Bulletin 27, No. 3, 175–181 il restauro di Luca Beltrami nel’ultimo decennio dell’ottocento,” Bol­ (1945); David Rosand, “Titian’s Light as Form and Symbol,” The Art lettino d’arte 6 (1980) pp. 55–72. In the sixteenth century, the fenestra- Bulletin 57, No. 1, 58–64 (1975). tion was reconfigured in conjunction with several other renovations, including the addition of a covered walkway over the portico run- 2 My digital model of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie has ning along the eastern wall of the refectory (Martelli, “Il refettorio taken each of these variables into account. di Santa Maria delle Grazie,” 64). While these renovations cannot be precisely dated, the annual cycle of pictorialized illumination at 3 The accuracy of the rendering software used in this article has been work in the mural would have been intelligible to viewers even if the experimentally validated. See Christoph Reinhart and Pierre-Felix picture was only illuminated as Leonardo intended for a few years, Breton, “Experimental Validation of 3ds Max® Design 2009 and although repeated viewing over a long period would have made the Daysim 3.0,” Building Simulation 11 (2009) pp. 1514–1521. Astro- iconographic and virtual components of the images fully manifest. nomical data from the Illuminating Engineering Society used for these simulations was also checked against data provided by Alcyone 10 Leonardo, Treatise on Painting, Vol. 1, A. McMahon, ed. and trans. Ephemeris. (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1956) Nos. 575–872.

4 Lillian Schwartz, “The Staging of Leonardo’s Last Supper: A Com- 11 The account is reproduced in Matteo Bandello,Tutte le opere, Vol. 1, puter-Based Exploration of Its Perspective,” Leonardo: Supplemental Francesco Flora, ed. (Milan: A. Mondadori, 1934) pp. 646–650. Issue 1 (1988) pp. 89–96. 12 Reproduced in Luca Beltrami, Documenti e memorie riguardanti la 5 Matt. 26:17–30, Mark 14:12–26, Luke 22:7–39. vita e le opere di Leonardo da Vinci (Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1919) p. 45. 6 1 Cor. 11:23–26. 13 Leonardo [10] Nos. 134, 860. The relationship between Leonardo’s 7 Since this vanishing point defines the center of a visual angle whose pictorial practice and his studies of light levels and dark adapta- distance point is located 4.45 m above the floor, viewers never as- tion is discussed in Z. Filipczak, “New Light on Mona Lisa: Leo­ sume the standpoint that is the real spatial correlate of the perspec- nardo’s Optical Knowledge and His Choice of Lighting,” The Art tival construction. As such, the structural ambiguities of the picture Bulletin 59, No. 4, 518–523 (1977). For a detailed explanation of how

52 Underhill, The Twilight of Presence

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01343 by guest on 29 September 2021 Leonardo was concerned with handling light in his paintings, see pp. 63–89. See also Carlo Pedretti, Leonardo: A Study in Chronology John Shearman, “Leonardo’s Colour and Chiaroscurao,” Zeitschrift and Style (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973) pp. 70–71; für Kunstgeschichte 25 (1962) pp. 13–47. Although the oft-lamented and Steinberg [14] pp. 153–169. condition of The Last Supperprecludes any sustained analysis of the relationship between Leonardo’s ongoing study of light and shadow 17 For the relation of the picture to the biblical narrative, see Steinberg and corresponding features of the mural, Shearman’s discussion of [14] pp. 18–29. the role of the Purkinje effect in structuring viewers’ response to the pigments of The Virgin of the Rocksprovides circumstantial evidence 18 Steinberg [14] p. 194. that Leonardo was aware of the role of light levels in structuring per- ception of his paintings in situ. See Shearman, “Leonardo’s Colour,” 19 Frances D. Fergusson, “Leonardo da Vinci and the Tiburio of Milan and Regina Stefaniak, “On Looking into the Abyss: Leonardo’s Virgin Cathedral,” in Claire Farago, ed., An Overview of Leonardo’s Career of the Rocks,” Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 66, No. 1, 1–26 (1997). and Projects until c. 1500 (New York: Garland, 1999). 14. For a catalogue (with commentary) of these copies, see Leo Stein- berg, Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper (New York: Zone Books, 2001) pp. 226–271. Manuscript received 14 January 2015. 15 Some of these spatial ambiguities stem from the fact that the outer- most edges of the floor (the orthogonals at which each wall meets the floor) are obscured by the table and its figures. Justin Underhill is a lecturer in Digital Art History at 16 Francis Naumann, “The ‘Costruzione Legittima’ in the Reconstruc- the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently finishing tion of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper,’ ” Arte lombarda 52 (1979) a book: Light, Sound, and Depiction.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Science and Art: Understanding the Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue Leonardo Special Section

Guest Co-Editors: Catherine Baker (Birmingham City University) and Iain Gilchrist (University of Bristol)

This call seeks to highlight projects in which the technological aspects of interdisciplinarity do not dominate the conversation but in which the relationship between the two disciplines is, rather, at the heart of the conversation. Most importantly this section will seek to question the relationship between practitioners and provide a roadmap for such relationships into the future.

We encourage submissions exploring the full breadth of interdisciplinary partnership across art, science and the humanities, presenting the candid voices of those whose ongoing activities reside at this key interface. Submissions can be considered from artist–scientist collaborators whose experiences of interdisciplinary exchange prompt reflection on the conditions of collaboration. We welcome submissions from artists and scientists who found value in the journey and not only the output, as well as submissions that take a historical perspective on such relationships.

PROPOSALS AND INQUIRIES Interested authors should submit inquiries to Catherine Baker [email protected] and Iain Gilchrist [email protected].

Please see leonardo.info/opportunity/call-for-papers-science-and-art for more information.

Underhill, The Twilight of Presence 53

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon_a_01343 by guest on 29 September 2021