Art Appreciation: Body Language of "The Last Supper"

Video Transcript

Probably the thing that we would be most aware of in looking at the picture that involves people is their faces, their facial expressions and their body language because that's what we automatically respond to any time we are in relation with another person. Again, this is difficult to see on, you know, with a fresco this damaged but you can certainly see, you know, a lot of these people have some sort of response of what, who me, and oh no this is terrible and here, here we go this one. Oh no it's not me. I would never do something like that, and, you know, the people over here are going can you believe, you know, that this would happen and that he said this and what could this mean that's what this group is saying. They're talking to each other, you know, they're alive. Not all of them are looking at Jesus. He didn't make it that obvious and most of this group are talking amongst themselves, this group are really sort of, you can almost hear what they're saying to each other. Judas is the only one that isn't, doesn't seem to be responding with somebody else. Here's Judas here. He's darker and he's holding a money bag and it's hard to see in this picture, but he's the one, he is looking, he's the only one that's actually looking really at Jesus and he doesn't have his mouth open and he isn't saying anything because he knows who he is after all. Usually I have to say that Judas is usually put in yellow and that was the familiar way to say this is Judas because he's dressed in the traitor's yellow. He, you know, Leonardo does not do that here. He's a little bit more subtle about it and, after all, the bag that he's holding doesn't look that much different from the bread rolls and so on on the table, but it is, you know, if you really stop and read all these people's features and all their body language he's the only one that is sort of not surprised that this is happening. So, you know, in a painting with people, you know, the expressions tell us a lot, but everything else about this picture is sort of, you know, honing in on that moment and really making that moment as solid as you can possibly make a moment.

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