The List #28: The Da Vinci Code

Mockers gonna mock.

As part of their effort to obscure and minimize the fact that France’s Olympics opened last week with a grotesque satire of the world’s most celebrated fresco, The Guardian referred to it as “Leonardo Da Vinci’s much-parodied The Last Supper.” That’s technically accurate, though totally dishonest in spirit.

When you’re over the target, as the saying goes, you take flak. Like its subject, the painting is so hauntingly exquisite, so obviously not of this world, that it has often attracted petty mockery. And like its subject, the painting is never diminished by the exchange: the mockers are.

If nitpicking and misdirection are the business of outlets like The Guardian, understanding and love are the business of the true critic. And in the case of Da Vinci, there’s one critic who can clear away centuries of petty chatter to illuminate the artist’s soul.