The Last Supper XXI

PIOTR FRANCISZEK BARSZCZOWSKI

The Last Supper XXI

For years I have studied outstanding works depicting the „Last Supper”. The vast majority of them are long tables in conguration of a horizontal rectangle. This is how the Lord’s Supper was presented by
Leonardo da Vinci, Salvador Dali, although… there were also works which showed approximate actual ancient way of eating the supper or introduced a surprising in the patriarchal world motive of
women who really – and in harmony with the testimony of the Bible – also became witnesses of the Institution of the Eucharist.

Tintoretto’s “Last Supper” made a great impression on me, I appreciated in them both the participation of women and the artist’s attempts to search for a new composition. I dreamt a composition of the picture, so apparently, thinking about my own solution of the theological and iconographic topic which is so important for our culture did not leave me even during sleep. Slightly overusing, I can call the composition: “Perspective of the Holy Spirit”. From the very beginning, I set the biblical scene in the present. I made a sketch and started dreaming about creating a large painting or even a stained glass with the height of minimum 3 metres. I knew that I would need help of extras to cope with the extremely dicult perspective shortcuts in conjunction with the combination of such procedures as: Golden Ratio, Fibonacci Sequence and anamorphosis. In addition to this, there are overt and hidden attributes which are waiting to be discovered by an insightful viewer, a complicated labyrinth hidden in the foor telling a story as well as signs and symbols known to Christians for ages and established in the presentation of this key and highly dramatic event, both in human and religious terms.

At the end of the March 2019 I organised a casting for extras. 26 people applied. Some of them were my pupils and students. I admit that over recent years I have seen them in my mind in the roles of contemporary Apostles and disciples of Jesus. And I had to choose 17 people on the basis of the original sketch. However, I did not dare to select. I felt bad in this role. I decided to engage everyone.

On Holy Thursday 2019 in the interiors of “Gemini Park Tarnów” took place a photo session which lasted from the closing at 9:00 pm to 3:00 am. I had almost everything to start the proper work. The only thing which was lacking was the “paint”. In my authorial technique which I call “New-Stained-Glass” this “paint” is macro and micro photography. In this way I compose digital collages which I then put on the glass. I mostly photograph water and minerals. This time I took a series of several hundred photos of bread and wine in order to emphasise the Sacrament of the Eucharist, I lled with them over 2,000 parts of the collage

I present to you “Last Supper XXI”, for which I have prepared for over 30 years