The Last Supper and
The Garden of Gethsemane

On the evening before His death, Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with His disciples.  He began by giving them an example of humility for them to follow.   He washed His disciples dirty feet--this was normally the job of a slave.  Here is Jesus Washing Peter's Feet by Ford Madox Brown, a Victorian artist.

At this Passover feast, Jesus established the Lord's Supper by speaking of the wine as His blood and the bread as His body, and He told them to eat and drink and be nourished by them.  Here is The Last Supper by Tintoretto, a Renaissance painter.  While the presence of servants is almost certainly incorrect, the presence of angels is a nice touch.

After the Supper, Jesus and His disciples (except for Judas, who had left to betray Him) went to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem.   It was probably the place they normally went to spend the night.  This night Jesus knew what was about to happen to Him, and He prayed to His father that He might avoid the suffering--but He prayed that His Father's will be done, not His.  He was in such anguish that He sweated drops of blood.  This is the classic portrayal of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane by Hofmann--it's the one I grew up on, but there is not much anguish in it.

Here are two more portrayals, the first by an unknown artist and the second by Hahlbohm, that I like, showing Christ being comforted by an angel:

While Jesus prayed in anguish, His three closest disciples, whom He had invited to pray with Him, had fallen asleep.  And one of His disciples was leading spear-carrying soldiers to Him to betray Him.  All of those elements are captured in this painting of Agony in the Garden by El Greco.

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