A modern painting of The Last Supper was found with a mysterious hole, with the artist’s interpretation of Jesus Christ having been “shot.”
The vandalism was spotted when the piece, created by renowned portrait artist Lorna May Wadsworth, was being prepared for display at the Graves Gallery in Sheffield for a retrospective of the Wadsworth’s work.
It was previously showcased at a Gloucestershire country church for a decade, but nobody had noticed if it was already punctured then.
A ballistics expert deemed the “bullet hole” to have come from an air rifle, and that Christ, depicted by the artist as black, was hit with a pellet.
The artist expressed her dismay at the malicious move, as it looked to her that “someone was so aggrieved by my portrayal of Christ that they wanted to attack it,” she told The Guardian.
Wadsworth also described the act to be “iconoclastic,” since her portrayal of Christ was inspired by fashion model Tafari Hinds.
The artist used the model’s image as Christ to challenge perceptions, inviting people to look at something “you think you know” with a brand new set of eyes.
Wadsworth pointed out that the pellet hole was positioned on Jesus’s right side, possibly signifying the final wound he had received from a Roman solder while hanging on the cross.
Some have wondered if the act was driven by racial motives, but Wadsworth hopes that it “was just mindless vandalism.”
Despite the discovery, the Graves Gallery will host the retrospective of Wadsworth’s work titled GAZE at the artist’s hometown at Sheffield from 9 November 2019 to 15 February 2020. More information can be found here.
Mysterious bullet hole through Jesus Christ found on painting of The Last Supper https://t.co/6NoZgQb1RA
— The Independent (@Independent) November 7, 2019
[via The Guardian, images via Ary Scheffer / Wikimedia Commons] http://www.designtaxi.com/news/407271/Last-Supper-Painting-Found-Shot-By-Air-Rifle-With-Jesus-Being-The-Target/