Essay Example on Religious Symbolism: Jesus in the Last Supper Murals

Religious Symbolism

A significant religious event has outwardly projected through the application of Cherubs and halos, which strongly emphasize spiritual practice. The use of religious symbolism in the paintings by both. The two murals point out that Jesus is the main focus as his holiness is higher than everyone in the room. The disciples are indifferent to Jesus. The refectory walls symbolize the chambers where religious people had their meals. Both paintings refer to the Last Supper as they depict a meal shared when Jesus instituted the Holy Communion.

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Tintoretto's Last supper composition was that of Jesus and his disciples and the hierarchy of holiness. The use of halos, then highly depicted. Jesus' halo is seen to be enshrined on his head like bright sunlight, whereas the apostles have a smaller halo. The disparity is a clear visualization of hierarchy in that Jesus is most holy and his apostles more spiritual than the ordinary people. The composition highlights the superiority of Jesus and his disciples. Besides, the painting based on the Christian belief of Jesus participating in the supper and believed that Jesus was preaching the spiritual idea to his disciples. The depiction of darkness symbolized human ignorance. The apostles promised Jesus they would go to the ignorant human world, and they would say the words of Jesus to the unaware people.

On the contrary, Da Vinci's composition serves a different purpose. Tencati (2018), points out that prominence is only given to Jesus in his place as he is seated at the center of the table to some extent, separated from his apostles. In the painting, Jesus bears no particular attributes of holiness as he and his apostles share the conviviality of a meal. The religious symbolism of Leonardo was that each of the twelve disciples depicted man's personality (Rokni, 2017). The "notion of the mind" would be seen from the posture, gesture, and interaction of everyone in the painting. Jesus is at the center with his arms spread out in disposed of trust. The disciples' reaction appears to be in question of Jesus' words. The layout, geometry, and composition connect to religious symbolism, Jesus to his apostles, and the viewer to the painting.

When comparing the religious symbolism of the two paintings, both depict the same scene of Jesus and his apostles in celebrating the Passover meal in which Jesus was the sacrificial lamb. Using the accounts in the four gospels books, the artists represented the moment in which Jesus had announced that one of his apostles would betray him. Jesus uses bread to symbolize his body in which it is broken and given to be shared, just as his body broken and his life given up for others. The wine represents his blood, which would be poured out and shared. There exist controversies on how Leonardo and Tintoretto's identified with the last supper. Leonardo's last supper was to stir the notion of the mind of the viewer of how disciples reacted. Peter is seen holding a knife which he is ready to protect the Lord's betrayer. Tintoretto's mural depicts time and place in that Jesus identified with his disciples and commoners. Also, the darkness in the painting signifies human ignorance.

The application of color and brush stroke

It is evident that color makes all the difference in the two artworks of Leonard and Tintoretto. From Leonard painting, we can deduce that The Last Supper art is polished with lighter colors as we can conclude that this work was carried out during the day. Regarding his co-painter named as Tintoretto a dark-lightening furnish which has been applied by the fire where it's not automatic that the artwork executed during the day in comparison to Da Vinci image. Concerning the intimacy of the artworks with the artist, Da Vinci's picture seems to be of intimacy, unlike Tintoretto painting that is associated with the bar-like set-up. Naturalism is all that is depicted by this painter when he uses the green colors in the pictures he comes up with, and this again shows the uniqueness from the other painters around Italy.

On the other hand, Leonardo used a color palette that incorporated blues, browns, greens as well as some egg whites in most of his paintings. The neutrality that he utilized in the arts with the use of the fade gray and brown colors worked to show the variation of the moods and tones of the pictures. Bright color palettes like red would show authority, and so on (Wildgen). The painters use fade color palettes to whom the moods of the paintings, as well as the other brighter colors, show aspects of authority, attention, or so. The white color used signifies the purity and holiness, especially in instances where Jesus revealed.

The similarity in the color palettes proves the shared subject matter or the point which is being conveyed by the paintings.

There are individual differences seen in the brush stroke applications in the paintings of Leonardo and Tintoretto. Leonardo was unique in the way he painted his artwork in that he used boards, walls, and sometimes stone on which he would wash his work.

A similarity element identified where both artists make use of brush stroke in their painting. The main difference that occurs in the artwork of the two painters is the methods they both used in brush stroke application. Each used the brush stroke application method, which they felt would give them the best quality of output as far as their paintings were concerned. The technique used by Leonardo uses more layers, and the quality of the pictures is high while Tintoretto reduced for maximization of cost and he later realizes that the quality has gone down with the reduction of the painted layers. It is the same with the final outlook of the paintings ("Leonardo Vs. Tintoretto - Art For All Ages").

Style Differences

Renaissance outlined as the era between the 14th and 17th Century when a stream of passion in art production was of great interest among artists. Renaissance means "rebirth." There are various significant reasons for this elementary feature in art. This is said to project the most significant period through human development since the downfall of Ancient Rome. Da Vinci imagery produced in the era of Renaissance such that his painting can be said to be simplified and applies symbolism with insignificant emotion arousement.

In contrary, Tintoretto opts to present the Last Supper event realistically, thus provide a significant impact on the viewer visually. Regarding the Renaissance as an element of artworks where Tintoretto portrayed as being more realistic and more of accuracy in a human way since he combines the arts of architectural structure and in the form of human while Da Vinci has employed the application of drapery for emphasis and project the kind of human deeds in it.

The style preferences used by the painters are unique. Jacopo uses impressionism in the instances where his paintings done at some angles that are unique and elevated to several degrees. He also makes his paintings appear more appealing to the eyes of the viewer. For example, in the part where he shows the apostles and the servants around them, the table which is being used by the apostles is seen to have been receding at a precise steep diagonal.

Moreover, the painter uses various light qualities in his paintings and shows the transition between the different scenes and events that take place in connection with the faith of the Catholic Church (Hall). By Tintoretto using the light in his paintings, he shows the presence of the natural light that comes the obscurity of the ceiling as well as the light that is associated with Jesus Christ as the light of the world and the savior of the world (Nichols, 2016).

Conclusion

Despite the simi...