Andy Warhol Visit: Artwork #5

Andy Warhol's famous piece, The Last Supper 1984, is simply two large rectangular black and white photographs of Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper, yet they have been saturated in a blood red color.  Warhol has reprodced a beloved and prestigious artwork, yet he has done so in a cheap manner, copying it in fuzzy black-white.  He has then defiled the piece even more by covering with a bloody red hue.  Warhol is making many statements with this piece.  He is outwardly defying the purity and sacredness of the Last Supper, by reproducing it cheaply and placing the copies side-by-side.  Warhol then makes a statement through the color of the piece.  During Holy Supper, a tradition in the Catholic faith, a believer drinks wine, yet the wine is believed to in fact be the blood of Jesus Christ.  Through painting his copies red, Warhol is dying The Last Supper in Jesus Christ's blood.  With this statement, Warhol spills his own beliefs about Catholicism and religion, and he encourages the viewer to form their own beliefs as well.