What does the painting show? What's going on and is it hisorical-the situaion not the painting?

The answer to your question is not simple, suffice it to say, the only known biblical ddescription of the last supper is quite vague........we know the supper was held in an upper room and that's about it. The fact is odd because alot of the dinners in the biblical times were held on rooftops accompanied by local venues of food and wine along with makeshift palm walls and roofs with one side of the room open to the air.......this happened in feasts and at passover and during harvests and so forth. In my thinking, the artist tries hard to depict exactly who was at the supper and in that vain, do a portrait from assumption of every apostle along with christ. The missing parts of the painting disallow us to make any real assumptions about any hidden meanings the painting might have,....This is much like spitting in the wind. While the painting is undoubtedly wonderful, it is as much deteriorated as it is historical which is a great shame. Alot of people like to think they can find the meaning to the word "grail" through the painting, this only makes the painting that much more mystical when "maybe",.....just "maybe" it's just a depiction by the artist to try and show what the last supper actually might have looked like. One might also consider that the host of the party would have been there as well,....."host" meaning "the person who gave the room for use".....so we cannot really say just exactly who is who and what it means that "they are in the painting"......but it is a truely wonderful painting of our Lord Jesus the Christ and has been and will continue to fascinate us all for a long time. we are left with a mystery. Another story of a dinner that was held is the story of "Zachias" a jewish tax collector who was reportedly very short and who was much despised by other jews,..Actually it wasnt so much of a dinner as it was Jesus who "told" Zachias that he was coming ot his house that evening for dinner,.....Jesus wasnt invited in, he simply told Zachias that Zachias was having him over for dinner, what an honor!...I know of no painting depicting that dinner and again, we are left with a mystery,......In the end, faith is what keeps us wondering and the fact that we can wonder at all is a gift in itself.

It wasn't just a dinner, it was the first night of Passover. The Last Supper shows Jesus and the apostles sharing the Passover seder, the night before the Crucifixion.

The Last Supper was also the occasion of the first holy communion.