Leonardo’s painting depicts the reactions jus after Jesus tells his assembled apostles, “One of you will betray me.” at first it looks like a freeze-frame moment, as if Leonardo had used the quickness of his eye, which could make a stop-action image of dragonfly wings, to frame-grab a specific instant. Even Kenneth Clark, who called ‘The Last Supper’ “the keystone of European art,” . . . . .
Look longer at the picture. It vibrates with Leonardo’s understanding that no moment is discrete, self-contained, frozen, delineated, just as no boundary in nature is sharply delineated. As with the river that Leonard described, each moment is part of what just passed what is about to come. This is one of the essences of Leonardo’s art: from the ‘Adoration of Magi’ to ‘The Last Supper’ and the ‘Mona Lisa,’ each moment is not distinct but instead contains connections to a narrative. ~ Page 281
We are touched, we look back to those beautiful times. Sweet sentimental longing leads us to the goal of our desire, to see Christ walking about in the promised land. We forget the anxiety, the distress, the paradox. Was it such a simple matter not to make a mistake? Was it not terrifying that his man walking around among the others was God? Was it not terrifying to sit down to dat with him? Was it such as easy matter to become an apostle? But the result, the fifteenth centuries – that helps, that contributes to this mean deception whereby we deceive ourselves and others. I do not feel brave enough to wish to the contemporary with events like that, but I do not for that reason severely condemn those who made a mistake, nor do I depreciate those who saw hat was right. ~ Page 181 ~ KIERKEGAARD - Fear and Trembling
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3 comments
Dinesh said:
Look longer at the picture. It vibrates with Leonardo’s understanding that no moment is discrete, self-contained, frozen, delineated, just as no boundary in nature is sharply delineated. As with the river that Leonard described, each moment is part of what just passed what is about to come. This is one of the essences of Leonardo’s art: from the ‘Adoration of Magi’ to ‘The Last Supper’ and the ‘Mona Lisa,’ each moment is not distinct but instead contains connections to a narrative. ~ Page 281
Dinesh said:
Dinesh said: