1-13 The thirteen chairs that were never painted in Leonardo's Last Supper

October, 25 2013 • 10:00

Posted inInner Ideas

It is well known that inspiration comes from all kind of sources, often where one least expects it.

 

Let’s talk about, for instance, a 500 year old painting.

 

You can say that for a long period of time a lot has been said and done around Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper. This masterpiece has been studied and visited by millions of people, it inspired fascinating hypotheses and speculations, its mysteries intrigue us to our very core, even for a short period of time.

 

Nevertheless, people can still find in this well-acknowledged piece of art new levels of meaning, which results in surprising works.

 

Milan-based Ghigos Ideas Studio wondered about the invisible layer depicted in the painting just behind the main characters. Their research could be summarized by the question: what could they possibly be sitting on?

 

This research involved 13 different designers (one for each character: 12 apostles plus Jesus Christ) who, with the aid of Milan’s most productive furniture companies, produced a set of chairs inspired by the speculations on historical details, moving principles and peculiar facts of Jesus’s scholars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For instance, the chair inspired by Saint Bartholomew (who died skinned by pagans and is often represented with a knife in one hand and his empty skin in the other) is constituted by a steel frame, which is nothing else than a fragile skeleton to the leather upholstery that covers it, a two-dimensional interpretation of a three-dimensional object, translated by the designer’s own sensitivity.

 

 

 

 

Images copyright Ghigos Ideas