A spicy performance reportedly drawing on Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, which took centre stage at the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Paris (26 July), has put all sorts of people in a spin, from the French Catholic church—the performance “included scenes of derision and mockery of Christianity”, proclaimed the clergy—to the US lawyer Jenna Ellis, who denounced the scene as containing “overt pagan and satanic symbolism”.
However, it appears irate commentators can now breathe a little easier, as the racy production, which featured the LGBTQ activist Barbara Butch along with a gaggle of drag queens, reportedly draws inspiration from a completely different (more debauched) picture.
“Does this painting remind you of something?” the Magnin Museum in the French city of Dijon asked on X, inviting people to “come and admire” The Feast of the Gods (1635-40) by the artist Jan van Bijlert. The Dutch art historian Walther Schoonenberg also weighed in. “The tableau vivant or ‘living painting’ in the opening ceremony of Paris 2024 was of The Feast of the Gods, by Jan van Bijlert from 1635,” he opined on X.
Crucially Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the Olympics opening ceremony, told BFM TV that Leonardo’s masterpiece was not his inspiration, adding that the scene portrayed Dionysus at “a big pagan festival linked to the gods of Olympus”. So Leonardo lovers—lie back and think of Dionysus instead.