48. Why do artists represent Jesus and his disciples in a sitting posture at the institution of the Lord's Supper when all sacred writers say it was customary in those days to recline at the table?

Artistic conceptions have certainly varied greatly in the treatment of this subject. Some painters have apparently discarded Oriental forms and customs, in order to produce a picture that would be less strange, yet no less impressive in the eyes of their own countrymen.

A few, like Tissot, have adhered closely to the Eastern standards. Italian painters have given us the Last Supper as a classic Italian scene, and German, Dutch and English artists have each given their own national interpreta­tion of the subject.

They painted for their own time and their own peo­ple, and unless they had had the advantage of travel and study in the Orient they could not have done otherwise. Strict accuracy was appar­ently held as of less importance than a noble and beautiful ideal.