Leonardo by Antonio Forcellino

Author:Antonio Forcellino
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781509518555
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2018-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

The process described by Giraldi is also echoed in several passages from Leonardo’s treatise on painting, the Libro della pittura, where we also find other ways of getting the best results from this kind of study, for example by sketching people when the light is not too strong at sunset. But Giraldi’s lapsus when he refers to The Last Supper by calling it a ‘panel’ brings us to what was the real problem for Leonardo. Although he showed off in every possible way when it came to his imitation of nature, we now know for certain that, for him, the real creative process took place during the compositional phase of the painting when, while working on the chiaroscuro and before any colour was even applied, those effects that gave expression to the pictorial narrative slowly started to emerge. In this respect the panel of the Adoration of the Magi is a veritable manifesto of Leonardo’s creative technique, and we can imagine his difficulties in approaching instead a mural painting of considerable size.

The wall to be painted measures 460 × 880 cm, approximately 40 m2, and it was impossible to think that a panel could cover this size. The only possible wall-painting technique was fresco, but for Leonardo fresco imposed an insoluble constraint: the speed of its execution. In fresco painting the colour has to be applied on fresh plaster before it starts the necessary drying process, which generally lasts for a day. This is why the sections of the painting are known as giornate [days]. For the same reason, once the plaster has been applied, it has to be painted swiftly, or else the size of the giornata section must be reduced; but this presents the risk that, when these sections get dry, the chromatic tones will be different.

Nothing could be more alien to Leonardo than this procedure. For him, the most creative phase of painting started when the scene was reproduced life-size and he would start working on the chiaroscuro, watching it develop, as if it were a real model in which things happened: for instance, over time, the minute gradations of light and shade slowly changed the expression on a face or the melancholic mood of a landscape. Leonardo took ages, working at a very slow rate: where another artist would have taken at most two months, Leonardo needed at least two years. Moreover, his sfumato effects were created using layer on layer of transparent glazes [velature], something that in fresco painting was impossible. When the pigment dissolved in water is applied, it is absorbed into the uppermost porous layer of the plaster and prevents any subsequent layers from entering the saturated plaster. When painting a fresco, one has to create the impression of transparency with heavily diluted colours; but, since repeated layers of colours are impossible, Leonardo used pigment dissolved in oil.

Leonardo’s very slow technique for The Last Supper has also been described by a contemporary witness: the writer Matteo Bandello, who saw him at work throughout the period when the monks (and even Ludovico) despaired of his slowness.

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