Authenticity, originality, reproduction… the observer reading the
name-tag or experiencing the work of art directly. Is the physical
original the authentic, or is the authentic that which is imagined by
the many? Is the manifestation the reality, or the story that is told?
Here is a passage from Mark Twain’s “The Innocents Abroad” that speaks
to the discussion on the topic of authenticity. Published in 1869,
Twain’s book discusses heritage tourism as a commercial and cultural
venture. Not only did this early book of his establish his reputation as
a writer, it also introduced American readers to the physical monuments
of Old World heritage, while at the same time mocking them (the
monuments, not the readers). A pertinent book to the question of, “Why
do we preserve?” Lest one think I come about my iconoclasm by
originality, this is one of my earliest and most favorite books and,
next to the ranting of Madame Blavatsky, I fear has a few times tainted
my vision of European history.

…………….
Here in Milan, in an ancient tumbledown ruin of a church, is the
mournful wreck of the most celebrated painting in the world—“The Last
Supper,” by Leonardo da Vinci.  We are not infallible judges of
pictures, but of course we went there to see this wonderful painting,
once so beautiful, always so worshipped by masters in art, and forever
to be famous in song and story.  And the first thing that occurred was
the infliction on us of a placard fairly reeking with wretched English.
Take a morsel of it:

“Bartholomew (that is the first figure on the left hand side at the
spectator,) uncertain and doubtful about what he thinks to have heard,
and upon which he wants to be assured by himself at Christ and by no
others.”

Good, isn’t it?  And then Peter is described as “argumenting in a
threatening and angrily condition at Judas Iscariot.”

This paragraph recalls the picture.  “The Last Supper” is painted on the
dilapidated wall of what was a little chapel attached to the main church
in ancient times, I suppose.  It is battered and scarred in every
direction, and stained and discolored by time, and Napoleon’s horses
kicked the legs off most the disciples when they (the horses, not the
disciples,) were stabled there more than half a century ago.

I recognized the old picture in a moment—the Saviour with bowed head
seated at the centre of a long, rough table with scattering fruits and
dishes upon it, and six disciples on either side in their long robes,
talking to each other—the picture from which all engravings and all
copies have been made for three centuries.  Perhaps no living man has
ever known an attempt to paint the Lord’s Supper differently.  The world
seems to have become settled in the belief, long ago, that it is not
possible for human genius to outdo this creation of da Vinci’s.  I
suppose painters will go on copying it as long as any of the original is
left visible to the eye.  There were a dozen easels in the room, and as
many artists transferring the great picture to their canvases.  Fifty
proofs of steel engravings and lithographs were scattered around, too.
And as usual, I could not help noticing how superior the copies were to
the original, that is, to my inexperienced eye.  Wherever you find a
Raphael, a Rubens, a Michelangelo, a Carracci, or a da Vinci (and we see
them every day,) you find artists copying them, and the copies are
always the handsomest.  Maybe the originals were handsome when they were
new, but they are not now.

This picture is about thirty feet long, and ten or twelve high, I should
think, and the figures are at least life size.  It is one of the largest
paintings in Europe.

The colors are dimmed with age; the countenances are scaled and marred,
and nearly all expression is gone from them; the hair is a dead blur
upon the wall, and there is no life in the eyes.  Only the attitudes are
certain.

People come here from all parts of the world, and glorify this
masterpiece.  They stand entranced before it with bated breath and
parted lips, and when they speak, it is only in the catchy ejaculations
of rapture:

“Oh, wonderful!”

“Such expression!”

“Such grace of attitude!”

“Such dignity!”

“Such faultless drawing!”

“Such matchless coloring!”

“Such feeling!”

“What delicacy of touch!”

“What sublimity of conception!”

“A vision!  A vision!”

I only envy these people; I envy them their honest admiration, if it be
honest—their delight, if they feel delight.  I harbor no animosity
toward any of them.  But at the same time the thought will intrude
itself upon me, How can they see what is not visible?  What would you
think of a man who looked at some decayed, blind, toothless, pock-marked
Cleopatra, and said: “What matchless beauty!  What soul!  What
expression!”  What would you think of a man who gazed upon a dingy,
foggy sunset, and said: “What sublimity!  What feeling!  What richness
of coloring!”  What would you think of a man who stared in ecstasy upon
a desert of stumps and said: “Oh, my soul, my beating heart, what a
noble forest is here!”

You would think that those men had an astonishing talent for seeing
things that had already passed away.  It was what I thought when I stood
before “The Last Supper” and heard men apostrophizing wonders, and
beauties and perfections which had faded out of the picture and gone, a
hundred years before they were born.  We can imagine the beauty that was
once in an aged face; we can imagine the forest if we see the stumps;
but we can not absolutely see these things when they are not there.  I
am willing to believe that the eye of the practiced artist can rest upon
the Last Supper and renew a lustre where only a hint of it is left,
supply a tint that has faded away, restore an expression that is gone;
patch, and color, and add, to the dull canvas until at last its figures
shall stand before him aglow with the life, the feeling, the freshness,
yea, with all the noble beauty that was theirs when first they came from
the hand of the master.  But I cannot work this miracle.  Can those
other uninspired visitors do it, or do they only happily imagine they
do?

After reading so much about it, I am satisfied that the Last Supper was
a very miracle of art once.  But it was three hundred years ago.

XXX
text courtesy of Project Gutenberg