Posted on 07/26/2007 7:03:19 AM PDT by NYer
An Italian IT expert claims to have found a secret image of the Virgin Mary and a Knight Templar inside Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece The Last Supper.
Pesci Slavisa said the image can only be seen in a certain light and that he had to use his computer skills to reveal it.
“I noticed a strange effect, like a shadow, when I was looking through a magazine with a reproduction of The Last Supper,” the 36-year-old explained.
“So I scanned the painting and printed it onto a transparent sheet, which I then laid over the original image.
“The result is a new painting with other figures”.
The news may revive the debate about the painting’s alleged hidden meanings, which was stirred up by Dan Brown’s bestselling thriller The Da Vinci Code.
In The Da Vinci Code, Brown controversially suggested, among other things, that the figure closest to Jesus in the painting was not St John but Mary Magdalene.
The book argues Mary Magdalene was misrepresented in male-dominated Christian history because she allegedly led the Apostles and started Jesus’s blood line: supposedly the real ‘Holy Grail’ (in French, ’sang real’ or royal blood).
The ‘truth’ about the Holy Grail is guarded by the Priory of Sion, which created the Knights Templar, according to the book.
Slavisa, however, insisted that he was not trying to prove any theories about the artwork.
“I’m not an art critic,” he said. “Other people will give explanations of the image. I limit myself to presenting what I noticed by chance, which can be verified very simply.
“I have not even read The Da Vinci Code, I’ve only seen the film, and I’m not even a Leonardo enthusiast.
“Indeed, I was not going to make my findings public at first”.
Milan Culture Councillor and renowned art critic Vittorio Sgarbi dismissed Slavisa’s claims as “pure invention”.
“Although I have not followed this matter, I think it is totally without foundation,” he said.
“The iconography of The Last Supper is the most classical and evangelical. It’s impossible that the painting contains different people from the ones that can be seen.
“Only someone as ignorant as a goat could introduce elements that are not absolutely orthodox into The Last Supper.
“If someone sees something by looking at it through a mirror then that is their point of view, but it is nothing to do with what Leonardo wanted or thought”.
Oh sheesh I didn’t realize it had been repainted umpteen times!
I have, in my studio, a large poster of a reproduction of the painting done in oils on canvas = PRE 1545. It may have been done in Leonardo’s life time. It has been pretty much settled that if Leonardo did not work on it himself, it was done by one or more of his students - who would have also worked in the Milan wall.
The two figures, on opposite ends, in question, do not have the faint halos visible on the others. And the Mary/John figure is even more feminine than what is left on the Milan wall after all the disastrous damages over the generations
I've checked over my post #37 several times and just can't find where I might have implied that he was.
"Finda the pope inna the pizza"
Look “closelier”.
I’ve wanted to reply to this for half an hour but cannot for the life of me figure out how to post photos. I’m really sorry for the distraction, but can somebody help me on this front?
DaVinci often painted male figures with feminine features. It was his attempt to convey youth.
Nothing strange here.
Wi've ahlreddy goht one....."
Has anyone ever considered that materials were expensive in the days when the painting was made and that it was a frequent practice among artists to just apply a solid colr topcoat of some kind or anothewr to an existing unwanted painting and then simply paint over it. With time the oils and colors of the painting underneath could simply migrate up and bleed into the visible picture as if it was a hidden feature?
I found one in a box of Cracker Jack — I discovered it by almost choking on it, but it was worth it...
Look, DaVinci WASN'T AT THE LAST SUPPER!!
I don't care how many women he put into his painting, or who was sitting where in the painting, or what shadows appear in the painting...the fact is it's just that--a painting, created hundreds of years after the fact!! It's not like it was a live photo.
Looks like a duck to me.
Reverse the "<"'s and it'll work. But the image has to be hosted somewhere. You can't simply point to your own hard drive.
Hope that helps.
L
That’s quite a history lesson ... thank you for sharing it.
Thanks!
Yeah, sure!
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