Tintoretto, Last Supper, 1592-94

Out of a selected handful of the famous "Last Supper" paintings, Tintoretto seems to paint the gloomiest one. From the biblical story, the Last Supper, despite the rather despondent outcome of the dinner, usually portrays a scene of hope and optimism, for though Jesus must leave, he leaves behind a world that has changed for the better.

Tintoretto takes that perspective and throws it back in the viewer's face. Perhaps he was bullied as a young child - his last name just begs for mocking - or perhaps he's just a brooding hipster of the late 16th century. Either way, unlike the other famous Last Supper paintings, such as Da Vinci's, Tintoretto portrays this final scene in one of chaos, greed, ignorance, and most of all, pessimism. Not only does he completely revamp the aura of the painting, the characters he includes in it are vastly different as well. In other, classic Last Supper paintings, the twelve apostles sit in reserved and mannered ways, as they carefully keep their eyes trained on the main figure, Jesus Christ. However, in this version, though the viewer's eyes are immediately drawn to the brightest Jesus in the background center, no one else is. All the characters make conversation with each other or stare uncaringly at the ever-so-fascinating mystery item in Christ's hand. There's not a single man or woman that seems to mind that in only minutes later will this holy man be taken away, or the fact that there seem to be wispy, wandering souls just floating in the air. No big deal.

The darkness that envelopes the room is so heavy and powerful that even the burning light and Jesus's own luster cannot seem to dispel it. It's suffocating and pressuring, the obvious symbolism present. Compared to other versions of the scene, the dankness of the room seems to represent sins of every type. Purity does not exist in this painting, besides for Jesus. The indifferent looks on the apostles with one man even bored enough to prop his head up with one hand displays the leaking power of religion.

Tintoretto's rendition therefore brings various criticisms and some unhappy viewers. An outraged cry thrown at him is the fact that the number of apostles at the scene isn't clear. And you can't count. Though undoubtedly a bit more obscure than others, Tintoretto still depicts twelve apostles with the faint glowing halo behind their heads. If one uses both hands and one foot, he or she can easily determine that there are indeed twelve men with faint halos behind them in this painting. Congrats on passing kindergarden math.

Others claim the work lacks realism. Oh really. Does it really lack common sense? Thanks for pointing it out because clearly I missed that while I looked at this. It does miss some realism, perhaps when compared to other paintings of the Mannerism era, but perhaps this was purposeful. Sure these apostles that ignore Jesus have bland and impersonal characteristics, but they're supposed to represent the people, the lower class, or even the society as a whole. But one cannot absolutely label this painting as one that lacks realism for in the foreground the outfit of the servers or even the setting as a whole has a beautiful, realistic and detailed aspect to it.

Despite all the faults people can find, this painting still brings a different perspective to a normally bright and optimistic scene. Though poor hipster Tintoretto still gets bashed, now viewers can undoubtedly appreciate the truthful portrayal of the heart of darkness in each human being.