A comparison of Tintoretto's final version of…

A comparison of Tintoretto's final version of The Last Supper with Leonardo da Vinci's treatment of the same subject provides an instructive demonstration of how artistic styles evolved over the course of the Renaissance.

Leonardo's is all classical repose: the disciples radiate away from Christ in almost-mathematical symmetry.

In the hands of Tintoretto, the same event becomes dramatic, as the human figures are joined by angels.

A servant is foregrounded, perhaps in reference to the Gospel of John 13:14-16.

Tintoretto, in the restless dynamism of his composition, his dramatic use of light, and his emphatic perspective effects, seems a baroque artist ahead of his time.