At the Last Supper, No Supersizing

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They mean the historical nature of the food in the painting as relative to the people and culture of the time, not the Passover seder itself. Renaissance artists depicted religious *themes* using clothing styles, buildings, landscapes, foods, gestures, and mannerisms for their own time and their own cultures, not the period or people the piece was based on. The artists were interested in realism as best as they could produce it at the time, so we can reasonably guess that the plate sizes and foods depicted were correctly sized and accurate for the diet of the artist and his or her culture.

NonyaB 4:08AM October 13, 2010

yeah, what about the eel?

santa 11:56AM March 25, 2010

I'm curious to know how many of these paintings accurately depict the historical nature of the last supper. It was supposedly a Passover seder which means matzah, not bread, would have been eaten. Jesus would have had to eat a super-sized portion of it to fulfill the requirement. And eels, not a kosher animal, certainly wouldn't have been on the table!

Debbie of MD 11:50AM March 23, 2010