Less than meets the eye?

Da Vinci Gets the Brush-off

By Rick Horowitz

Report of the Masterpiece Restoration Evaluation Organization

We, the undersigned members of the above-noted institution, after considerable study and debate, present these initial findings in the matter of the just-completed restoration of "The Last Supper," by Leonardo da Vinci. In offering our views at this time, we are mindful of the great artistic and religious significance of this work, now more than 500 years old, its great fragility almost from its creation, and the ravages that time, and earlier generations of retouchers and repainters, have visited upon it.

We recognize as well the good intentions of those who have spent the past two decades seeking to recapture the beauty of the original masterpiece, which depicts, of course, the moment when Jesus tells his disciples that one of them will soon betray him. The passing years have not been kind to "The Last Supper," and any effort of this magnitude is doomed to achieve, at best, only partial success.

Still, we find ourselves quite troubled by what we see here. "The Last Supper," we fear, has become "The Last Snack."

It is true that this latest restoration, by removing accumulations of dirt and glue and similar substances, has made for a far more colorful painting than has been seen in centuries. Likewise, the facial expressions of the individual apostles are much clearer and more evocative than they have been in some time. And long-lost details from the banquet table -- an orange, a fish platter, wine glasses and the like -- are visible once again. These are all positive developments.

Or are they?

We are hardly alone among scholars in wondering just how "authentic" this latest restoration can be, when so much of the mural has been chipped away and then revitalized in search of da Vinci's own brush strokes. Restoration decisions about a late-fifteenth-century work are necessarily made from a late-twentieth-century vantage point, with all the attendant blind spots and biases.

To pick just one example: Was there really track lighting in Jesus' day? This seems unlikely, and yet this is what the "restorers" have given us throughout the upper reaches of the banquet room. Needless to say, the extra illumination is helpful in bringing out the vivid colors da Vinci actually chose for his work, but we can't help feeling that the artist's own intentions have been somehow subverted in the process.

Similarly, with regard to these vivid colors, we remain unconvinced that the banquet tablecloth was ever intended to be a "tie-dyed" fabric. We do not question that the "tie-dye" technology existed in da Vinci's era; we are skeptical, however, that da Vinci himself would have chosen to incorporate such a free-form design element into what is otherwise so disciplined a composition.

Likewise the waiter, now seen standing behind and to the left of Thomas. Our research leaves us quite dubious that such a person ever existed, either in the original painting or, for that matter, at the particular meal in question. The bowl of salsa now clearly visible in front of John seems a triumph of wishful thinking at best, and we find no evidence whatsoever to justify the Chicken McNuggets.

Where Judas once sat quietly to Jesus' right, clutching his notorious bag of silver, he now clutches a cell phone -- the better to carry out his betrayal, to be sure, but an unlikely choice even for so visionary an artist as da Vinci.

What accounts, we wonder, for Simon's sudden, eerie resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio? And is it likely that any, let alone all, of the many upraised arms in this painting would have been graced with Rolex watches?

Finally, and most worrisome of all, of course, is the "restored" portrayal of the mural's central figure himself. There is nothing in all the literature, over all the ensuing centuries, to suggest even the slightest possibility that da Vinci ever clothed Jesus in a T-shirt that read, "Honk If You Love Me."

All in all, then, we have our doubts.

Posted 6/1/99. Fresh stuff right here twice weekly!

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