The Last Supper (da Vinci)

Christ has just said that one of them will betray him, and the words roll down the table in waves - the twelve recoiling, questioning, protesting in four groups of three, hands everywhere, while Christ sits silent at the still center where every perspective line converges (John 13:21). Judas, clutching his money, leans back into shadow among the rest rather than apart from them. Leonardo worked in an experimental oil on dry plaster that began to flake in his lifetime, so what survives is a much-restored ghost. Even so, it broke the staid refectory Last Suppers - like those of Bouts and Ghirlandaio in this collection - open into pure human drama.