wine, of the plates and crumpled tablecloth and the woman who watches their conversation instead of the baby at her breast.
Tintoretto (1518–1594): Last Supper, c .1592. Lucca, Cathedral. © 1990. Photo Scala, Florence
I look at this painting for a long time. I try to understand it. I try to understand the difference between the people close to Jesus at the far end of the table and the people down at this end, close to us. The closer they are to us, the less attention they pay him. Yet it is more beautiful down here; it is richer and more alive. At the other end, Jesus bends to put bread in the bearded mouth of Peter and Peter ardently clasps his hands. That, too, is a moment of life in this painted scene. I don’t doubt that Tintoretto believed it himself. But the reality of the man in the purple coat, whose hand rests on a fallen keg of wine, is too powerful. Perception is stronger than belief, at least for an artist, who sees such grandeur in ordinary things. In this it is the artist who is God. And it is a strange kind of proof we seek from him, we who are so troubled by our own mortality, who know we will all eat a last supper of our own. We want the measure of the grandeur taken. We want to know that life was indeed what it seemed to be.
On the train home we find our guidebook in a bag, and discover that we have seen virtually nothing of the glories of Lucca, neither the National Museum nor the Villa Guinigi, neither the Filippino Lippi altarpieces nor the della Querciaengravings. The children sit in a corner, studying their souvenirs. Later we will learn to fillet an Italian city of its artworks with the ruthless efficiency of an English aristocrat de-boning a Dover sole. We do not yet know the hunger that will take us in its grip. But for now we are perfectly satisfied; like all the other tourists who daily circumnavigate Lucca’s terrifying walls, we are quite content. In a few days we are going south, to the house that will be our home until the summer comes. I wonder what awaits us there. I wish I knew better, how to tell the difference between the good and the bad, the truth and the imitation. I wish I could learn how to read the structure of life as weathermen read the structure of clouds, where the future must be written, if only you knew what to look for.
The Pregnant Madonna
The Pregnant Madonna lives in the village, beside the main road. They keep her in the old schoolhouse. It is a small, plain, white cement building, distinct from the precarious earth-coloured terraces that form silent, dark, delicate chasms around the narrow village streets, winding uphill to their own exiguous and mysterious summit. The village suffered an earthquake in 1917, in which the original school building was destroyed. We meet an elderly lady who tells us how on that day her throat was sore and her mother let her stay at home. More than half of her classmates were killed by the building’s collapse. These days the school is situated in a modern complex elsewhere and the small, vaguely funereal, white cement building that extemporised between tragedy and renewal houses the Madonna.
On that side of the village the road, leading nowhere in particular, is quiet. Once or twice a day an air-conditioned coach appears at the narrow intersection like a vast, snub-nosed whale, venting great sighs from its hydraulic brakes, and clumsily manoeuvres itself into place outside the old school. From its side tourists are disgorged, people from Germany and Holland, people from Japan, come to unearth the Madonna from her obscurity here by the side of the road. The rest of the time the building stands brilliant white and silent in the sunshine while the curator sits on the front steps, reading the Corriere della Sera and smoking Marlboro Lights. He is a man with business interests, and has dogs that are reputed to be the most voracious truffle-hunters in the region.Often a woman is sitting on the steps in his place, keying messages on her
Tintoretto (1518–1594): Last Supper, c .1592. Lucca, Cathedral. © 1990. Photo Scala, Florence
I look at this painting for a long time. I try to understand it. I try to understand the difference between the people close to Jesus at the far end of the table and the people down at this end, close to us. The closer they are to us, the less attention they pay him. Yet it is more beautiful down here; it is richer and more alive. At the other end, Jesus bends to put bread in the bearded mouth of Peter and Peter ardently clasps his hands. That, too, is a moment of life in this painted scene. I don’t doubt that Tintoretto believed it himself. But the reality of the man in the purple coat, whose hand rests on a fallen keg of wine, is too powerful. Perception is stronger than belief, at least for an artist, who sees such grandeur in ordinary things. In this it is the artist who is God. And it is a strange kind of proof we seek from him, we who are so troubled by our own mortality, who know we will all eat a last supper of our own. We want the measure of the grandeur taken. We want to know that life was indeed what it seemed to be.
On the train home we find our guidebook in a bag, and discover that we have seen virtually nothing of the glories of Lucca, neither the National Museum nor the Villa Guinigi, neither the Filippino Lippi altarpieces nor the della Querciaengravings. The children sit in a corner, studying their souvenirs. Later we will learn to fillet an Italian city of its artworks with the ruthless efficiency of an English aristocrat de-boning a Dover sole. We do not yet know the hunger that will take us in its grip. But for now we are perfectly satisfied; like all the other tourists who daily circumnavigate Lucca’s terrifying walls, we are quite content. In a few days we are going south, to the house that will be our home until the summer comes. I wonder what awaits us there. I wish I knew better, how to tell the difference between the good and the bad, the truth and the imitation. I wish I could learn how to read the structure of life as weathermen read the structure of clouds, where the future must be written, if only you knew what to look for.
The Pregnant Madonna
The Pregnant Madonna lives in the village, beside the main road. They keep her in the old schoolhouse. It is a small, plain, white cement building, distinct from the precarious earth-coloured terraces that form silent, dark, delicate chasms around the narrow village streets, winding uphill to their own exiguous and mysterious summit. The village suffered an earthquake in 1917, in which the original school building was destroyed. We meet an elderly lady who tells us how on that day her throat was sore and her mother let her stay at home. More than half of her classmates were killed by the building’s collapse. These days the school is situated in a modern complex elsewhere and the small, vaguely funereal, white cement building that extemporised between tragedy and renewal houses the Madonna.
On that side of the village the road, leading nowhere in particular, is quiet. Once or twice a day an air-conditioned coach appears at the narrow intersection like a vast, snub-nosed whale, venting great sighs from its hydraulic brakes, and clumsily manoeuvres itself into place outside the old school. From its side tourists are disgorged, people from Germany and Holland, people from Japan, come to unearth the Madonna from her obscurity here by the side of the road. The rest of the time the building stands brilliant white and silent in the sunshine while the curator sits on the front steps, reading the Corriere della Sera and smoking Marlboro Lights. He is a man with business interests, and has dogs that are reputed to be the most voracious truffle-hunters in the region.Often a woman is sitting on the steps in his place, keying messages on her
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