The Holy Grail and the Last Supper

Dear Mouse,

Some may accuse me of being obsessed with the Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. This is my third blog about the novel.

Blame my professor in Humanities who saw to it that we visited galleries for our paper at the end of the semester-- a collection of interpretations of paintings and caricatures.

Blame my cousin who won a painting contest for a work of art that he did not have an idea what was it all about.

Now comes the interpretation of the Last Supper of Leonardo Da Vinci in the novel of Brown.

Dan Brown wrote:

Oddly, Da Vinci appears to have forgotten to paint the Cup of Christ.

Simply art scholars must have noted.

You will be shocked to learn what anomalies Da Vinci included here that most scholars either do not see or simply choose to ignore.

This fresco in fact is the entire key to the Holy Grail mystery. Da Vinci lays it all out in the open in the Last Supper.

Sophie scanned the work eagerly. "Does this fresco tell us what the Grail really is.?

Not what it is.Teabing whispered. But rather who it is. The Holy Grail is not a thing but a person.

...

The Grail's description as a chalice is actually an allegory to protect the true nature of Holy Grail. Thelegend uses the chalice as a metaphor for something more important-- a woman.

p. 243...

Hold on Sophie said, you told me that the Holy Grail is a woman, the Last Supper is a painting of thirteen men.

OH Teabing said, how about the one seated in the place of the honor at the right hand of the Lord ?

...As she studied the person's face and body, a wave of astonishment rose within her. The individual had flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and the hint of a bosom.

...That my dear, replied Teabing is Mary Magdalene.

Brown must be referring to this person in this restored copy of the painting.

The Last Supper was his experiment on fresco. It deteriorated immensely that several restoration efforts made it lose some of the original features.

This is the painting before the restorations. The figure pointed out that had feminine features do not look like the restored version.

For one, it looked like the figure has a beard.

I can not accept the claim of the author that this figure was a woman or to be specific, Mary Magdalene.

If she were Mary Magdalene, she would not be shown by the artist to be leaning close to another apostle much more being touched in the shoulder.

St. John, the youngest among the apostle would most likely fit the figure's depiction of a young man.

His hands were no different from the hands of other apostles.

One description of his style is that we can always tell a Leonardo's work by his treatment of hair, angelic in its fineness, and by the lack of any rigidity of contour.

The draft of the Last Supper shows the profile of the apostles.

By the way, Mary Magdalene was not an apostle, she was a just a disciple.

There were 12 apostles and 72 disciples.

As to the Holy grail, it must have been obliterated in the process of restoring the painting.

The Ca t