According to the saying, it’s either God or the Devil in the details. Either way, there seems to be an inherent fascination with closely observing the finest details in a subject. In museums, given opportunity, people will walk right up to a painting or photograph to examine it as closely as possible. This may happen even if the subject in itself is not so compelling. But when it is…

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Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper is no doubt an art object that has plenty of intrinsic interest. But given the opportunity to observe it in fantastic detail, I found it equally compelling as an object. The image above is from that decaying fresco (despite its resemblance to some of my close-ups of junkyard cars).

The group at haltadefinizione specializes in ultra-high resolution photography of art objects, and you can view several other examples on their web site. I recommend the Cupola di Novara — see if you can find the birds.

Incidentally, there has been recent speculation — perhaps fed but not initiated by Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code — that The Last Supper harbors a hidden musical score. You can learn more about it on YouTube.

Do details have as strong an attraction for you as they do for me? Or do you always keep a respectful distance from an artwork?