Light and Movement

In stark contrast, Tintoretto chose to paint the last supper as a dynamic event with animated disciples, angels pressing down from heaven, and a room full of spectators struck by awe. Tintoretto uses bright colors and he paints Christ as a source of light that illuminates the rest of the canvas from the center. Tintoretto abandons the more pastoral view of the last supper that Da Vinci portrays in favor for an imaginative and action filled scene. Tintoretto also puts the apostles in clothes that reflect their humble origins, and he sets the last supper inside a more run down, "earthy" atmosphere. Tintoretto paints from a more interpretive view of the Last Supper. He puts the servants in the foreground and pushes the table with the disciples and Christ to the left hand side of the canvas. His inclusion of angels and movement suggests a hectic and awesome event, and his painting of Christ as being illuminated from within suggests a more spiritual dynamic to the painting rather than Da Vinci's nearly historical approach.

El Greco attempted to express the religious tension with exaggerated Mannerism. This exaggeration would serve to cross over the Mannerist line and be applied to Classicism. After the realistic depiction of the human form and the mastery of perspective achieved in high Renaissance Classicism, some artists started to deliberately distort proportions in disjointed, irrational space for emotional and artistic effect. Key aspects of Mannerism in El Greco include the jarring "acid" color sense, elongated and tortured anatomy, irrational perspective and light, and obscure and troubling iconography.[19][20]

Tintoretto

Tintoretto, Last Supper

Tintoretto's Last Supper (at right) epitomizes Mannerism by taking Jesus and the table out of the middle of the room. He showed all that was happening. The painting emphasizes light and motion, dramatizing the image. Unlike more traditional views of the Last Supper, he depicts Heaven opening up into the room, and the angels looking on in awe, per the old Catholic maxim that "If the angels were capable of envy, they would envy the Eucharist."