My friend Dave likes to collect images and figurines of the Last Supper, specifically the iconic version by Leonardo da Vinci. I had been telling him for years that I would make a polymer clay version and this is it. The foundation of these figures is an egg with the inside blown out, steadied on a base of polymer clay. They are basically Weebles that don’t wobble. I tried to have the figures in the same positions as in Leonardo’s painting. Bartholomew (in blue and green, far left) leans with his right arm on the table, John (beardless man to Jesus’s right) naps blissfully. I wrote the name of each apostle on the bottom of each figure along with the seating position from left to right, to help get the seating right.
My version is more abstract than the original, no one has arms unless they are visible in the painting, and not always then even. There is no evidence at all of legs or feet.
At this squat size, I thought Jesus looked better with his arms raised instead of lowered as they are in the original. In the painting, James Major (#9, in yellow, with arms outstretched) looks like he his hold back the onslaught. Keep your hands off my plate! But in my much less detailed figurines, James looks as though he might be about to break into a Broadway tune (in a Major Key natch!). Philip (#10, in red) looks a bit anxious as he does in the original, as if he were the one who betrayed. While the actual betrayer Judas (#4) looks like he is about to ask a question. Could you please pass the salt? I seem to have spilled mine.
Dave was inspired to this quest not by religious fervor but by an essay by Umberto Eco called Travels in Hyper Reality. 