Leonardo And Tintoretto Comparison

The last supper is one of the most iconic biblical moments. While dining during the jewish holiday of passover, he prophesies that one of his disciples will betray him. This comes true and the most defining part of christianity takes place, the crucifixion. Three days later he returns to life. The crucifixion marks a point where Jesus turns from man to legend, and the last supper the final moments of his mortality. While the Last Suppers painted by Leonardo and Tintoretto take place at the same time, the use of several composition techniques, most specifically light, place the prophet in different times. Leonardo shows the man before the crucifixion, while Tintoretto paints him as the prophet. The most clear example of how light is used to distinguish the man from the prophet is the halo. In Leonardo's fresco (1495-1498), Jesus and the disciples do not have heads ringed in the gold light that marks a saint. In stark contrast, Tintoretto’s Oil on canvas work (1592-1594) shows the disciples all with halos, and Jesus with one that illuminates the room. It is almost the only source of light. The painting is clearly in a Mannerism style, breaking from a realistic representation of humanity to one more stylized. The work also quotes stories from the bible outside of the …show more content…
His expertise lay in realistic representations and not in the enigmatic stylizations of Mannerism. This can clearly be seen in his tempra of the last supper. The figures are realistic, and posed in a more classical style. There is not a visible source of light like in Tintoretto’s work, though Jesus is illuminated more than the others. The light itself is very natural, giving the room a soft an intimate feel. Here the light emphasises the betrayal. The supper is one of close friends having a good time, only to be shocked by Jesus’s proclamation. Though only painted a hundred years apart these two suppers show how the use of light changed during the