disconnecting

I was most­ly dis­con­nect­ed from so­ci­ety from Sun­day evening—yesterday af­ter­noon and what I’ve gleaned is that ap­par­ent­ly Trump sup­port­ers are Big Mad about be­ing called “weird” and are hi­lar­i­ous­ly and dis­turbing­ly com­par­ing it to the n‑word and also Trump was in­ter­viewed and it was crazy? 

Any­way.

 

I have seen The Last Sup­per in person. 

I have stood in front of the wall where Leonar­do da Vin­ci (1452–1519) him­self stood in the 1490s and paint­ed his un­mis­tak­able masterpiece. 

It is every bit as mag­nif­i­cent as you can pos­si­bly imagine. 

Ac­tu­al­ly, no. 

I take that back. 

It is even MORE mag­nif­i­cent than you can pos­si­bly imagine.

Here are some in­ter­est­ing facts about it!

•   The paint­ing was orig­i­nal­ly done on a thin ex­te­ri­or wall, and the paint failed to prop­er­ly ad­here due to humidity.

•   As ear­ly as 1517, the paint­ing was start­ing to flake. 

By 1556, it was so de­te­ri­o­rat­ed that the fig­ures were unrecognizable.

•   In 1652, a door­way (!!!!!!!!!) was cut through the paint­ing (still en­tire­ly un­rec­og­niz­able), and was lat­er bricked up. We saw the ev­i­dence of this; there is an ir­reg­u­lar arch-shaped struc­ture near the bot­tom of the paint­ing. It con­tin­ued to de­cay, flake, and get scratched due to good in­ten­tions gone bad.

•   The paint­ing has had rocks thrown at it, the build­ing was bombed in WWII, and var­i­ous dis­mal and un­suc­cess­ful (some also very dam­ag­ing) at­tempts at restora­tion were made. 

 

•   Fi­nal­ly, in May 1999, a 21 year restora­tion was completed. 

The paint­ing is now in a cli­mate con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment and is the clos­est to the orig­i­nal that it has ever been. 

Maybe!

 

The Last Sup­per is very much a Ship of The­seus type thing. (Click “Ship of The­seus” if you don’t know.) 

Yes, the mas­ter him­self paint­ed it. 

Yes I saw it. 

But I saw the restoration! 

Is it re­al­ly still the paint­ing? 🤔

 

Any­way, the peo­ple who are out­raged over the 2024 Olympics open­ing cer­e­mo­ny and their as­sump­tions that it des­e­crat­ed the Last Sup­per know enough to fill a thim­ble, if that.

 

—emi­ly duchaine

Flom­mist Emi­ly Duchaine lives in the Pa­cif­ic North­west. She likes to drink mead, learn about sharks, and lis­ten to the Talk­ing Heads. She pre­tends to be a pro­fes­sion­al busi­ness­woman most days. Copy­right © 2024 Emi­ly Duchaine.

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