The Sacrament Of Last Supper by Salvador Dali

This is a painting called The Sacrament of Last Supper. Its' painter is Salvador Dali who was born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain in 11 May 1904. He died 23 January 1989. He is best known for his surrealist paintings but as he was developing his painting style he was inspired by the Renaissance artists and mostly Leonardo Da Vinci. This painting was inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper. I chose this painting because the Alberti's ideas can be observed easily in this painting.

Just like Da Vince, Salvador Dali has considered symmetry important. The centric ray in this painting is just above the Christ's head where the Sun light comes from. And if we were to draw a line vertically passing through the center. It is incredibly summetrical except the Christ. Alberti described the importance of rays by saying "I usually give my friends the following rule: the more the rays are employed in seeing, the greater the quantity seen will appear, and the fewer the rays, the smaller quantity."(On Painting, 42) and in this picture the rays are clearly seen. The extrinsic rays are at the corners on the painting and they create the structure of a pyramid along with our eyes. The horizontal median rays are on the colon's of the inner window. The left one is at where the colon starts to disappear and the right one is at the intersection point of the right colon and the mountain. One of the vertical median ray is at the upper colon of the inner window where the soul of Christ starts to ascend to heaven and the lower vertical median ray is at at the center of the two disciples and the corner of the table.

The two disciples of Christ faced to the Christ hold a great importance for the painting. This painting has a golden ratio. The height and weight of the painting form a rectangle which holds the phi ratio. If we draw the Fibonacci rectangle on this painting as the Figure below, we see that those two disciples are at the center of two symmetrical Fibonacci rectangles.

This again shows how symmetrical, this painting is.

The idea of perspective is of great importance for Alberti. For a good painting, it is necessary for the painter to use perspective and to apply this rule, the painter should use a device called veil. In this painting the table and the positions of the guests and the Christ fits this idea of perspective. the left and the right ends of the table is bent in a way that it gives us the view of depth. The ends of the table points to the center of the painting which in this case also the center of the pyramid that is formed with our eyes. This makes the painting more realistic. the feeling of depth is also creted by the sun light. The shadows of Christ and his disciples are very specific. They are drawn in a way that they would point the center of the table.

The shadows, the symmetry, golden ratio and the feeling of depth makes this painting a good one in Alberti's point of view.