Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Exhibition, Images
This fascinating piece in the Guardian details British filmmaker Peter Greenaway's (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover) plans to bring to life Leonardo DaVinci's The Last Supper. The effort will be part of a series of projects the director and painter plans to animate classic works of art. Greenaway, according to the article, will use "dramatic lighting, projections, and recordings of actors' voices" to transform The Last Supper into "something close to a film." He plans to expand the moment DaVinci captured into his painting into a larger story stretching from Christ's birth through his crucifixion, and will include "raw and heavy images of Christ's genitalia and naked crucifixion" from other DaVinci works. Greenaway doesn't plan to stop with The Last Supper -- future plans for bringing works of art to life include works by Veronese, Velázquez, Picasso, Monet and Jackson Pollack; he's even asked the Vatican for permission to project onto Michelangelos' Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. He's already done one project, animating Rembrandt's The Nightwatch in 2006.
The project is not without its critics -- some feel DaVinci's work stands on its own and doesn't need improving. Personally, I think this could be really cool. It's not like Greenaway proposes to deface or destroy classic works of art, he's basically just looking to reinterpret them with the help of media that wasn't available when they were painted. What do you think? Should great works of art be left alone, or could a project like this actually help the art world by exposing people to works of art from a perspective they might otherwise not have considered?Permalink | Email this | Comments
