Italian Painting 1

Artist Leonardo da Vinci
Title The Last Supper ( Il Cenacolo or L'Ultima Cena)
Style Florence Renaissance refectories tradition
Date 1495-1498
Medium Tempera on gesso, pitch and mastic
Dimensions 460 cm × 880 cm (180 in × 350 in)
Current location Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy

The Last Supper covers an end wall of the dining hall at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. The theme was a traditional one for refectories, The Last Supper specifically portrays the reaction given by each apostle when Jesus said one of them would betray him. All twelve apostles have different reactions to the news, with various degrees of anger and shock.

Leonardo da Vinci
Born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci was the beloved child of a landowner and a peasant girl. Raised by his father, he began apprenticing at the age of 14 under the artist Verrocchio. Within six years, he was a master artist and began taking commissions from wealthy clients. His best-known works are two of the most famous paintings of all time, the "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper." Da Vinci's scientific inquiries fill 13,000 pages, ranging from anatomy to war machines.Da Vinci has been called a genius and the archetypal Renaissance man. His talents in arguably extended far beyond his artistic works. Like many leaders of Renaissance humanism, he did not see a divide between science and art. His observations and inventions were recorded in 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, including designs for flying machines (some 400 years before the Wright’s brothers’ first success), plant studies, war machinery, anatomy and architecture. The famous artist died in Amboise, France, on May 2, 1519.
In an era when left-handedness was considered the devil's work and lefties were often forced to use their right hand, Leonardo was an unrepentant southpaw. It has been suggested that this "difference" was an element of his genius, since his detachment allowed him to see beyond the ordinary. He even wrote backwards, and his writings are easily deciphered only with a mirror.