Gospel in Art: I still have many things to say to you

Last Supper, by Andy Warhol, 1986 © Phillips New York, 17 May 2018, lot 14

Source: Christian Art

Gospel of 17 May 2023
John 16:12-15

Jesus said, 'I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.'

Reflection on the pop art painting

Jesus is nearing his own death, and he is pouring out the depth of his love to his disciples.

We feel an urgency in Jesus' voice: 'I still have many things to say to you'. It is the type of sentence we would use with our friends, when we feel we don't have enough time to say all we want to say. Jesus spoke these words at the Last Supper, the final moments of him being together with his closest friends.

In the arts, when we hear the words 'The Last Supper', our minds tend to think of Da Vinci's Last Supper. This painting by Andy Warhol, executed in 1986, is a different take and belongs to the final body of work that Warhol executed before his untimely death. His series of paintings of Da Vinci's Last Supper treated the original fresco in Warhol's typical unique visual language of appropriation, seriality, screen-printing and repetition.

Although Da Vinci's The Last Supper is one of the world's most celebrated and studied works of art, it has not existed in its original form for 500 years, because the original deteriorated within a few years of its completion as a result of Leonardo's experimental techniques. So the studies and restoration of the work also rely on engravings, reproductions, and old prints which themselves vary over the centuries according to the stages of erosion, restoration and the artist's own ability to faithfully reproduce the fresco. In a way, Da Vinci's work is an impossible work to reproduce. Even photography can do only a partial job. Indeed, Warhol himself tried unsuccessfully on and off for a year to work from photographs which he found too dark to convey the detail that he needed. Warhol was mesmerised by the beauty of the fresco and admitted that he could never do it justice in reproducing it. Tellingly, in the midst of working on the series, he signed a petition against the restoration of original, stating, "I only know that it is a mistake to restore - it is unbelievably beautiful just as it is!"

LINKS

Gospel in Art: https://christian.art/
Today's reflection: https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/john-16-12-15-2023/