The Dirt on Da Vinci

It has taken two decades and $8 million to scrape 500 years of grime off of one of the world's most famous paintings. Not everyone is happy about the results. If Jesus has become a murky figure in a painting, there's a strong possibility that he's out-of-sight in our lives as well. It's time for some hard work to bring him to the foreground once again.

[Note: To provide visual support for these thoughts, project a slide of da Vinci's Last Supper or provide a copy as a worship folder insert.]

Leonardo Da Vinci's painting The Last Supper has been retouched, refurbished and renovated, and it can now be seen by the viewing public. It's back and it's beautiful, sharper and more colorful than ever!

But not everyone is happy about the results.

It took two decades to scrape 500 years of grime off one of the world's most famous paintings. But now that the face-lift has been completed, visitors to the Santa Maria delle Grazie church in Milan can see a much brighter, clearer depiction of the last meal shared by Jesus and his disciples.

Paint and dirt were flaked away a millimeter at a time to get to Da Vinci's original 1497 masterpiece. Over the years the tempera-on-stone painting has been the victim of nine known retouchings; destruction by Napoleon's troops, who used the church grounds as a stable; grease buildup from a nearby...