The Last Supper

Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti) (1518–1594) — 1592–1594 · Oil on canvas · San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

“And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.” — Luke 22:19 (KJV)

About

Tintoretto's last Last Supper (1592–1594, San Giorgio Maggiore) turns the table diagonal and dark: Christ, half-hidden at the far end, rises to give the bread to an apostle; servants bustle in the foreground; and the lamplight blooms into a swarm of smoky angels overhead.

The Meaning

The genius is the reversal: the main event is small, far, and luminous; the world's business is large and near. Christ serving the bread, not presiding over it — the Supper as an act of distribution, the Host become the waiter, with angels crowding the smoke.

For Us Today

Come to the table expecting heaven to be in the room. If we saw what Tintoretto saw — the upper air thick with angels at an ordinary supper — we would handle holy things with more wonder and less routine (Luke 22:19).

Image: Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons — the file’s page. Tap the picture to open the full-size original there.