Tomás García-Salgado

Statement

This artistic illustration is based on the article "The Reverse Outlining Perspective of Leonardo's Last Supper and Its Image Formation" that was published in Leonardo Journal (April 2008, Vol. 41, No. 2, Pages 138-144). Here I include the Abstract on my article. The accurate perception of a painting's image formation depends upon three concepts: the observer's distance to the perspective plane, the aperture of his or her visual field, and the limits of the perspective plane. A comprehension of these concepts is crucial to the calculation of both the painting's image formation and the observer's vantage point. To approach this problem in Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, the author introduces the reverse outlining perspective method, through which it is shown how the painting's image formation can be deduced.

Artworks

This image is a product of perspective-geometry research. It shows the mathematics of the perspective used in a very well-known masterpiece. As far as I know, this sort of mathematical analysis of Leonardo's Last Supper has not been carried out before.