
The Last Supper (da Vinci)
1495 · Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy
Christ has just said one of them will betray him, and the shock rolls down the table. Leonardo's experimental paint began flaking in his lifetime.
★ 9.7

Christ has just said one of them will betray him, and the shock rolls down the table. Leonardo's experimental paint began flaking in his lifetime.

A mountain, a wineshop flag and a boatman conjured from a few wet blots. Sesshu made it as a parting gift for a departing pupil.

A satyr kneels and touches the dead woman with extraordinary gentleness while her dog keeps watch and wading birds stand along the shore.

Dante had been dead nearly two centuries, so this is not a likeness but a verdict, struck in profile like a coin.

Late Botticelli, with the early lightness gone tense. He had fallen under Savonarola's spell and his religious pictures never relaxed again.