Granting (with respect) your personal position of belief on that matter, this writer would only point out that the distinction between Mary Magdalene and "the beloved disciple" (around which so much controversy swirls pursuant to Dan Brown's novel and earlier such hypothesis) as provided by Jn 20:2, has no peer in terms of documentation.

The statement at Jn 20:2 is simply the oldest and most authoritative source of all applicable information on that topic that exists.

That fact alone, regardless of what position of trust is accorded to it as a source, places it in the category of being more authoritive on the matter than any other source (or collections of materials) to the contrary that may be called upon to support a different interpretation of the identity of the figure to Jesus' right.

On other matters relative to the thread, this writer's delay in posting on Leonardo's painting in realtion to Passover (as promised days ago) is due to additional research being done.

...and Grrr82CU

I have read a lot about this subject by people who have studied this issue and this line did not cause the writers any problems. I'll have to refresh my memory, though, and get back to you.

A hint of a new Doc. and Book to be published shortly on da Vinc1 at: I found that there perspective a valid one. A note from the project to the people: NOTE: We have not misrepresented Leonardo's work in anyway, nor have we used any computer manipulation or transposition techniques to alter the Master’s original works. Leonardo used mirrors throughout his whole professional life to hide his ideas in notes that were written backwards. Simple perpendicular mirror reflection could reverse that process rendering the text legible to any reader who could understand the language. It is not at all surprising therefore that he would apply similar mirror imaging techniques in his art to those he used when writing his various Codices. http://www.lionardofromvinci.com/index.html http://www.lionardofromvinci.com/Library.html

One of the two reasons for choosing the title of the originating post, “Leonardo’s Painting – A Fatal Flaw ?? " was to focus attention on the accumulation of information and subsequent interpretations all claiming to be based upon Leonardo’s painting (the other reason is about the Passover in relation to his painting - that post still intended but not prepared).

Anxious to provide examples showing all manner of “secrets revealed”, proponents tout how Leonardo deliberately painted in “clues” as to who/what the “Holy Grail” was/is using techniques known only to him but which are now knowable to us compliments of modern technology.

As everyone knows, “The Da Vinci Code” started a phenomenon that has generated extraordinary levels of interest. Building upon Dan Brown’s fictional platform, more books, new websites, lectures, tours, have arrived in the marketplace many positioning themselves (imputing by no statement to the contrary) that they are not fiction. It almost seems there are more proponents explaining what has been discovered from their study of Leonardo’s painting than there are detractors explaining why they are wrong.

So, what about those claiming that “secrets” were hidden by Leonardo utilizing painting techniques so advanced (layers hidden below layers, visual allusions created with plays on perspective and light, even incorporating “mirror-painting” to conceal hidden figures of such things as Templar Knights) that such images are discernable in our day thanks to great sleuthing and advanced technologies? Can such claims actually be supported by Leonardo’s painting as it was originally painted or for that matter, as it exists today?

What about those claiming that Leonardo painted Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ wife to his right instead of the youngest disciple/apostle, John? Does the figure exhibit a “bosom”, pregnant, accompanied by a “V” shaped space symbolizing yet another “clue”, the “Sacred Feminine”, a woman’s womb as identified by Teabing in Dan Brown’s novel? Again this writer asks, “Can such claims actually be supported by Leonardo’s painting as it was originally painted” or as it exists today?

Can the painting of “The Last Supper” by Leonardo Da Vinci on its own merits according to what we have today be used to prove that he used techniques known only to him to leave behind “secrets” and “clues” about “who” and/or “what” so-called The Holy Grail was and is?

Can we know from the painting as it exists today if Leonardo intentionally inserted Mary Magdalene into the painting as Jesus’ wife to his right instead of the youngest apostle, John?

To each of the preceding interogatories, the answer is “No”. Subsequent paragraphs will explain.

Even though as previously noted Dan Brown’s novel is positioned as “fiction”, assurances are now advanced by many as truth. Leonardo, they contend, meant for those of another day to recognize that the “Holy Grail” is a woman’s womb. This, they say, is represented by the ancient symbol for the “Sacred Feminine”, a “V” shaped space that Leonardo took pains to create between Jesus and the figure to his right.

For us in this forum exchanging viewpoints, what basis can be provided by this writer to influence others to consider that such conclusions derived from “studies” of Leonardo’s “The Last Supper” are in fact “flawed” both as to reasoning and evidentiary outcomes? Is such a basis for disbelief even possible to present?

This writer hopes that the following information will demonstrate once and for all that the many presentations listed above (and many more unspecified) assuring validation from Leonardo’s “Last Supper” as we see it today are not only “flawed” but rendered “impossible” to have achieved based upon the painting itself.

So, back to all the books, websites and other sources of commentary detailing the mysteries now being revealed about Leonardo’s “Last Supper”. Once again the question must be asked, “Can any of them be valid given the historical travails of the painting through the centuries?”

It might be helpful to those who still “aren’t sure” that some foundation doesn’t exist for believing in such claims, to consider the history of the painting’s “endurance” through the intervening centuries up to our time. Is what we see today “Leonardo’s”… or only the attempts by others pursuant to what they think he painted, imposing with less skill their paint applied over the vague shadows remaining of his work?

Giorgio Vasari (1511 – 1574), was a painter, an architect, and known for his biographical work on famous persons. As Leonardo Da Vinci’s biographer, Vasari described the painting of The Last Supper as already “ruined” and in such state of decomposition that the figures in the painting were "unrecognizable" by 1556. That is sixty years (+/-) after Leonardo finished it.

If the painting had become [color:#CC0000][b]”unrecognizable” by 1556, how many layers, converging perspectives, and planes of light, male/female facial characteristics, skin tones, secretive messages painted into the composition, etc., done by Leonardo’s own hand were left to explore electronically and otherwise by the dawn of the new millennium?[/b][/color]

Nothing that would support all the claims now being made in the painting’s behalf!

A first restoration was attempted in 1726 which endured poorly. Another attempt was begun in 1770 wherein the work of 1726 was stripped off but restoration was halted and remained in an unfinished state for a very long time.

In 1796 the French used the building as an armory. Soldiers are recorded as throwing stones at the painting and scratching out the eyes of the figures. The building was also used as a prison wherein no catalogue of damage by prisoners was kept.

Next, disaster!

In 1821, an attempt was made to remove the section of the wall upon which Leonardo had painted. The center section was severely damaged, apparently at or near the location of the celebrated “V” space appearing between Jesus and the figure to his right. If true (and historically it is) was it restored to represent (Teabing's description of it in Brown's novel as the “Holy Grail”) what Leonardo had originally painted it to be or did he never paint the space intending such significance at all? The project to remove the wall and the painting was abandoned. How was it repaired? The wall pieces were reinserted and mortared but the wall surface, the painting pieces that had been removed, were re-affixed with glue!.

Next, another cycle of study and poorly executed restoration came and went between 1901 and 1924 only to be followed by more years of decline so that by the late 1970’s, the painting was so badly deteriorated that it was again considered to be “unrecognizable”.

What happened next? You guessed it! Another cycle of restoration was commenced and after more re-painting, stabilization techniques for the wall-surface, and the installation of climate control devices were completed the restored (or would re-created by other lesser skilled hands than Leonardo's who also didn't know his "secrets" be more accurate) painting of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper is now available for limited viewing.

In summary

Given the history of the painting’s “endurance”, given that whatever Leonardo Da Vinci’s own hand painted long ago faded to the state of being “unrecognizable” multiple times, given the record of damages and botched repairs on detail that could no longer be recognized, who can allow themselves to be carried away by all the fanciful tales spun by Dan Brown and others?

How many contributing to this and other such forums, proclaim Leonardo’s painting has all sorts of secrets to tell us, secrets only now being revealed through sophisticated scanning techniques reaching down through the layers revealing hidden images?

Claims of Leonardo’s fabled secretive techniques utilizing planes of refracting light, converging perspectives, mirror-painting, image-messaging, and many more known-only-to-him processes revealing secrets today, is simply not possible given that his experimental paint long ago faded or was striped away by early restorers hundreds of years past according to the historical record.

Claims regarding his secret painting techniques no longer remain to be explored, x-rayed, 3-D scanned, or otherwise technologically “explored”. Even if images had emerged during such modern day high-tech wizardry (which they couldn't have as detailed previously), it would be impossible to distinguish between the work of Leonardo versus painting over or in replacement of his work by Gellotti, Mazza, Barezzi, Cavenaghi, Silvestri, Pelliccioli, or Barcilon spread as it was over centuries interspersed with repeated acts of vandalism from one source or another, environmental deterioration, and botched attempts at restoration.

So the next time you are regaled with a tale about some new discovery announcing what new-age technology has revealed about Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of “The Last Supper”, when you find yourself wondering if Da Vinci really painted the figure to Jesus’ right to be Mary Magdalene, that he painted a "her" instead of an effeminate Apostle John as he did elsewhere (pursuant to The Florentine School's techniques), that the figure was pregnant and later moved to France to bear Jesus’ child, or the next time you see that Templar Knight at the far end of the table supposedly hidden there by Leonardo for future revelation but discernable today thanks to great sleuthing and modern electronics (but more likely thanks to Adobe Photoshop)…think again!

…and Grrr82CU

Indeed, we cannot possibly 'know' that Leonardo included secrets in his fresco-type-painting, known as 'The Last Supper'. The style ~ not quite fresco ~ didn't work, apparently, and so it deteriorated very quickly.

Dan Brown, amongst others ~ eg Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince ~ have read much into the works of Leonardo da Vinci. It's interesting to read and to speculate upon their ideas, but there is no proof of anything particularly mysterious.

I don't think that we can really learn anything of the ancient past from the works of Leonardo, but he may have incorporated 'heretical' ideas into his art ~ or not.

Certainly, I think that it is well-known that the painting we have today is a restoration of a restoration of a restoration. However, in those days before photographs, painted copies of images tended to exist (though Picknett & Priince think that the 'Turin Shroud' is an early photograph, made by Leonardo.) And there are early copies:

http://www.tongerlo.org/da_vinci/avondmaal.htm

http://www.racollection.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXSS_=%2403%2f1230+index+mus_obj_parts=%2e%26_IXMAXHITS_=1%26_IXDB_=default%26_IXSESSION_=mLSsS72Ngql&_IXSR_=xt1&_IXSPFX_=full/p&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXFIRST_=1&submit-button=summary&_IXELEMENT_=0

The Tongerlo one has been in their abbey since 1545 and the Giovan Pietro Rizzoli one was completed by 1549, so we can get an idea of what Leonardo's work was like in its earliest days ~ and it's not unlike what we have now.

We must always 'think again' ~ but that does not mean that our minds should be closed.

We don't know that Leonardo's works contain puzzles or mysteries ~ but we don't know that they don't ~ and there is much symbolism in Renaissance art. Paintings are to be deciphered, I feel, and I see no reason why we should not try to decipher those of Leonardo and put forward our own theories ~ they may be wrong or they may be right, but they are up for discussion.

We discuss the meaning behind Picasso's 'Guernica'; we wonder about Poussin's works. I see no reason not to discuss Leonardo's works. I find them intriguing ~ as do others, otherwise these theories wouldn't exist.

He seems to have been an usually able man with ideas before his time ~ maybe some of them are indeed shown in his art. Who can say?

Being very aware of the early copies of Leonardo’s “The Last Supper”, that we have a general idea of “what it looked like” today was never at issue. It should be kept in mind when viewing those copies that they were based upon a work already in an advanced state of deterioration.

With only seven and eleven years respectively to go before becoming “unrecognizable”, fine detail painted by Leonardo would have been by then been fine no longer. By the time these artists copied Leonardo's work, the need to rely upon their own interpretation, skills, (and unavoidably) some degree of “guesswork" would most likely have been imposed upon them by the painting's condition.

One should approach with caution (and a healthy dose of skepticism), all that is being touted as research and high-tech discovery regarding Leonardo's intents, purposes, and "secrets" when he painted "The Last Supper" before embracing it.



As you know, this writer quite agrees.

...and Grrr82CU

Yet their works are extremely similar.
Is this because they copied each other, or did they copy Leonardo's still recognisable project?

Personally from my own perspective I find what Giorgio Vasari wrote about many things when it came to da Vinci not to be true, by study of my own research have found many things Vasari says made up to sell books.
Look at Vasari's time line and compare it with much of what was going on at the time in history.
There are no facts that back up Vasari's story of the painting by Leonardo called the Mona Lisa, in fact there is proof that the king was not even in the town where his palace was when da Vinci died, so how could he have been with Leonardo when he died?
Be careful of what you make of Giorgio Vasari's words.

O in case you didn't know Giorgio Vasari gave the Painting by Leonardo da Vinci the name we call now call her to be the Mona Lisa, and the story he made upm about her, everything was made up, there is and has never been any proof to sow anything different about the name of the subject until 2005 when a researcher by the name of Michael W. Domoretsky found the true name within the painting call the Mona Lisa woven within the sleeve of the painting itself in Opyical illusion for an invention by da Vinci himself.
This person is on his way to putting out a book on da Vinci's finds shortly.

http://www.lionardofromvinci.com/Summary.html
http://www.lionardofromvinci.com/Summary.html

Other researchers have drawn other conclusions ~ I think you must know that I have mentioned Isabella of Aragon before, and this could well be a portrait of her.