Arcadia Discussion Zone

Did you know that Leonardo is credited with having painted over 60 renditions of his Mona Lisa? Some of them nudes? Seems a bit obsessive if this was just a commission from a merchant's wife called Lisa Gherlandaio:

No. This is the first time I have seen this painting.

So what was LDV up to?

It seems to me he is having a lend of someone. May as well plaster Minnie Mouse's (MM????) face on the thing.

Here are a few Tim missed, some of which predate Leonardo's with others painted shortly afterwards. Just to show there was no change in "the rules" in Leonardo's time.











A painter in 15th century Italy faced some mighty stiff competition, so many of them made bold artistic decisions that had less to do with hidden codes and secret heresies and more to do with making your Last Supper stand out from all the rest. In fact the only real innovation in Leonardo's is the frenetic, swirling proto-Baroque action among the Disciples. Things like the absence of halos, the feminine-looking John, Peter's knife, etc. were already well established before Leonardo.

Father Silence

The images you have show here are more in keeping with the orthodox approach to the subject.

It is clear (to me at least) LDV departed from this in his LS.

And I have to say that while the figure slumped over Jesus in the Bassano painting does have a girlish face, look at his shoulders, his forearms - these are clearly masculine features.

A painter in 15th century Italy faced some mighty stiff competition, so many of them made bold artistic decisions that had less to do with hidden codes and secret heresies and more to do with making your Last Supper stand out from all the rest. In fact the only real innovation in Leonardo's is the frenetic, swirling proto-Baroque action among the Disciples. Things like the absence of halos, the feminine-looking John, Peter's knife, etc. were already well established before Leonardo.

Father Silence[/quote]


One other thing I noticed in your posted paintings FS, is that the beloved disciple is always seated to Jesus' left and Peter to the right.---Bill

That last one is interesting. Too massive arches form the letter 'm' with the centre of the 'm' having a point on it and aiming straight at Mary Magdalene. The lack of a beard on most of the paintings is also obvious. This is becoming so obvious now that its embarrassing watching anyone argue that this figure is John.

Interesting thing about Peter's knife. (Could some please explain the orthodox/traditional meaning.)

In the non LDV paintings shown, Peter is just holding a knife.

In LDV's LS he is hold a knife in his right hand while his elongated left hand is suggestively over the disputed figure's neck.

Again, LDV departs from the tradition - he clearly is saying something different.

If this was his response to the competition - then he was dicing with death - risking being burnt.

The Kilmore Church isn't RCC, it's Church of Scotland as it was at the time the window was installed

Father Silence

To those of us who see an esoteric message in the de Vinci work, the way Peter is holding his hand across Mary's neck is indicative of him threatning her, which is indicated by the gnostic gospels.

Is he unusually fond of swimming?

Is he unusually fond of swimming?
[/quote]


No, the three peaked mountain in the background looks exactly like one back home - on my native planet.

Very disconcerting!

yes it is the Church of Scotland, I had said many of the church's, and I should have said "even the RCC". btw, it is indeed Mary of Bethany, I know this for a fact, you must agree she looks pregnant, so the artist therefore must have been also representing Mary Magdalene.

Frankly, Wayward I first read this in the "Templar Revelation" (I think) 15 years ago - so I pinched it.

then you are way ahead of me, I only came into this 4 years ago. So teach me!

Teach you what?

How to grind salami meat to perfection?

That's all I could teach you.

I don't think it's either brave, or foolhardy for me to assume a motive and I also don't buy into your hypothesis that they may have "found their position untenable..." - there may have been some general frustration at the petering out of the Crista discussions, but I think only you (and perhaps Roscoe, who also seems to have disappeared) actually felt it was a conspirational horse that needed to be beat to death. Most of us I believe were quite inspired by the subject and the many interesting avenues that we were led to by it - quite some of the most fascinating material ever covered, regardless of ultimate RLC relevance. On the other hand, both Sheila and Tingra made quite specific statements of their building frustration about some of the recent forum claptrap, immediately before (in theory) exiting and I have no doubt those feelings are shared by many others.

In the Gospel of John, Peter "beckons" the Beloved Disciple to ask Jesus to name his betrayer. That is the reason for Peter's "suggestive" gesture. Of course it probably made more sense when John was in his original position on Jesus' left. In this position Peter could simply whisper into John's ear as in some of the non LDV examples. In Leonard's version he seems to be doing both (and his arm appears to be both behind asn infromt of john's head.



Then why wasn't he burnt? This painting was immediately famous and viewed by thousands of people, amongst whom were many who were quite intelligent, well educated and/or fanatically religious and yet he wasn't arrested for any of his innovations in the Last Supper, Madonna of the Rocks or any of his other works (although I think he was forced to abandon some optical experiments.)

Renaissance churches were as competitive as the artists. The clergy were delighted when their Last Supper was distinctive and unusual. It showed you were trendy and progressive and that sort of thing was fashionable at the time.

Father Silence

I am actually surprised that this didn't come up at some earlier point in time, not necessarily as a "hidden history" type thing, but just as a "John looks like a woman" type thing. For the record, I personally don't see the figure as a woman, but I am also not surprised when some do. Apart from the general feminization representing youth idea, I was quite struck by your series of images of LDV's companion - very interesting. And who knows, as a gay man, maybe LDV WAS winking by painting John as specifically effeminate - lord knows TV and movies were riddled with blatant gay references for decades, that are only apparent in retrospect to the non LGBT masses. Thank you by the way for your detailed contributions to this thread - some very enlightening stuff!

It looks as though Leonardo wrote a fairly detailed description of the geometry involved just below his diagram. It may reveal something of his intention. I've been trying to find a translation of the text but haven't had any luck. Since you've been studying this for a while, can you help us out?

Check out just this one example from the John the Apostle Wikipedia page:



Hans Memling 1468

That's gotta be Joan of Arc, right?

Why, because Magdalene had a beard?

Here you go - Mary Magdalene with a beard, the riddle is solved, you win:

Gian Giacomo Caprotti, alias Salai: Self Portrait



"She" even has a halo fleurdelisée to keep the batteries of Lov's bloodline fantasies charged (don't say I never did anything for you, Lov).

Looks remarkably like another "central" figure in The Last Supper, doesn't it? See any patterns developing? (rhetorical question, I don't expect you would).

TCP

Thanks for finding a better image.
Franz de Cleyn was the Court painter to James I and did this picture in the first half of the 17th century.
He has not followed the position or clothing colour of the 'youth' in the Da Vinci image but has been faithful to the
tradition of androgyny.
Remember of course, that at the time it was painted all female theatre roles were played by youths.
TD

"Many of the churches" did conflate MM with Mary of Bethany, but the Church of Scotland wasn't among them. She looks like a lot of Pre-Raphaelite women and not especially pregnant, just fashionably plump.

FS

Oh my G_d, you solved it! Salai needs an "M" to complete his salami. Where's the "M"? In the Last Supper!

In the Gospel of John, Peter "beckons" the Beloved Disciple to ask Jesus to name his betrayer. That is the reason for Peter's "suggestive" gesture. Of course it probably made more sense when John was in his original position on Jesus' left. In this position Peter could simply whisper into John's ear as in some of the non LDV examples. In Leonard's version he seems to be doing both (and his arm appears to be both behind asn infromt of john's head.



But isn't the point that LDV's treatment of it is a significant departure from the traditional - you can't get away from that.


Then why wasn't he burnt? This painting was immediately famous and viewed by thousands of people, amongst whom were many who were quite intelligent, well educated and/or fanatically religious and yet he wasn't arrested for any of his innovations in the Last Supper, Madonna of the Rocks or any of his other works (although I think he was forced to abandon some optical experiments.)

Renaissance churches were as competitive as the artists. The clergy were delighted when their Last Supper was distinctive and unusual. It showed you were trendy and progressive and that sort of thing was fashionable at the time.


1. Why wasn't he burnt? - perhaps his work was ambiguous enough to pass muster.

2. I think you contradict yourself - on the one hand you talk about "fanatically religious" people and on the other you talk of the clergy being delighted by his distinctiveness and unusualness. Which is it?


I'm afraid I don't know my history well enough (and I suggest you might be pulling a few rabbits from hats also?) but wasn't the Rennaissance a time of great foment - The Medicis were sponsoring the dissemination of new ideas from the east and the Arab world - a lot of them esoteric. These ideas not only capitivated the intellectuals, the intelligentsia, the monied elites but also the clerical elites. They may well have been complicit in LDV's ludibriums and non orthodox presentations.

Perhaps a 100 years later, the orthodox reaction to all this was sufficient to get Giordano Bruno burnt. Whereas, LDV may have been a man of his times?

One other thing I noticed in your posted paintings FS, is that the beloved disciple is always seated to Jesus' left and Peter to the right.---Bill[/quote]

If you look more closely you'll notice that in both the Giottos John and Peter are on Jesus' left:





...and here are a couple I neglected to include:





...and here's the freakiest one of all, by Andrea del Castagno. In this example Andrew holds the knife (which appears to have been added later) and Peter's left hand is on his right wrist:



FS