Art Representations Old Fashioned Sunday School

February 3 2013

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13th century An image of the Trinity fills the initial D that opens one of the eight major sections of psalms in the psalter. At the top of the scene and beneath an animal head, a dove representing the Holy Spirit descends towards two seated figures with crossed-nimbuses. Holding books and raising their hands in blessing, the two figures represent God the Father and Jesus Christ seated together on a bench. This presentation was inspired by the text from Psalm 109: Dixit d[omi]n[u]s domino meo: sede a dextris meis (The Lord said to my Lord: sit at my right hand).

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1370-1430 At an early stage, what came to the fore as a valid image of the Trinity in the Eastern Church was a symbolic representation that was known as the philoxenia (hospitality) of Abraham, as it was based on the visit, described in Genesis 18, of three men or angels to Abraham and Sarah. Abraham had a calf slaughtered and entertained the guests, who then promised him that his aging wife Sarah would give birth to their longed-for son. This Old Testament story had already been interpreted by the Fathers of the Church as the first revelation of the three Persons of the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Ghost). In this icon the three angels are sitting at a richly decked table, on which three chalices, knives, a jug, small loaves and other objects can be seen. Abraham's tent or house is replaced by a richly detailed, colourful town, while on the right loom the three peaks of a mountain on which grow stylised trees.

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1464 In the next fresco of the cycle, a boy on the left is attempting to use a spoon to transfer all the waters of the ocean into a little hollow. The episode is described in an apocryphal letter of Cyril of Jerusalem, and shows that the client was a particularly good expert on literature concerning St Augustine. In the letter Cyril writes that St Augustine, while thinking about the Trinity, met a small child on the beach who was attempting to ladle out the oceans using a spoon. When St Augustine explained to him how impossible his plan was, the boy replied by telling him that the mystery of the Holy Trinity was also not something that could be comprehended by the human mind. The scene is a parable of the unbridgeable gap between faith and reason. In the middle distance, St Augustine is sitting surrounded by a circle of monks on a bare path leading to a monastery on the top of the mountain. The Visit to the Monks of Mount Pisano is depicted for the first time in this fresco, emphasizing its uniqueness. In the foreground on the right, St Augustine is giving the rule of the order to the hermit monks. He is wearing the dress of Augustinian hermits, a black habit with a pointed hood, leather belt and shoes. There is no historical proof of St Augustine's journey to Tuscany. The event is also not mentioned in the Confessions. However, oral tradition has it that St Augustine stayed in Tuscany after his mother's death. Due to grief at the loss of his mother, he is said to have forgotten to write it down. According to tradition, St Augustine visited the hermit monks of Mount Pisano. This legend was very popular as it suggested that the Augustinian hermits had originated in Tuscany. In fact, St Augustine founded his community in the fourth century in northern Africa. The rule of the Augustinians, dating from 388/389, is the oldest Western monastic rule. In 12 short chapters it lays down the fundamentals of monastic life. The goals of the monastic community are poverty, brotherly love, obedience, prayer, reading the Scriptures, work and apostolic work: a life characterized by seclusion and humility. Not until 1256 did Pope Alexander (1254-1261) found the order of Augustinian hermits by combining several Italian groups of hermits who had been living according to the rule of St Augustine since 1243.

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1520 garafalo

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1400 de atri

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1414

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1415-28This is the most famous work of Masaccio beside the frescoes in the Cappelle Brancacci. There are various opinions as to exactly when this fresco was painted between 1425 and 1428. It was described in detail by Vasari in 1568, who emphasized the virtuosity of the "trompe l'oeil" in the architectural structure of the painting: "a barrel vault drawn in perspective, and divided into squares with rosettes which diminish and are foreshortened so well that there seems to be a hole in the wall." Only two years after Vasari's book was published, the erection of a stone altar caused the fresco to be covered up by a panel of the Madonna of the Rosary painted by Vasari himself. Thus the fresco remained unknown for further generations from 1570 to 1861 when owing to the removal of the 16th century altar it was again uncovered. After being removed and placed on the internal facade of the church between the left and the central doors, it was put back in its original position in 1952, as a result of the discovery, beneath the 19th century neo-Gothic altar, of the lower section of the fresco with Adam's skeleton and the painted altar table, once part of the whole work. The reconstructed work was taken up by critics as the symbol and revelation of Brunelleschi's principles in architecture and the use of perspective, to the point that some believed Brunelleschi to have had a direct hand in the work. The most likely interpretation of the Trinity is that the painting alludes to the traditional medieval double chapel of Golgotha, with Adam's tomb in the lower part (the skeleton) and the Crucifixion in the upper part. But it can also assume the significance of the journey the human spirit must undertake to reach salvation, rising from the earthly life (the corruptible body) through prayer (the two petitioners) and the intercession of the Virgin and saints (John the Evangelist) to the Trinity. A close-up view of the skeleton in the sarcophagus also revealed the ancient warning, in clear letters: I WAS WHAT YOU ARE AND WHAT I AM YOU SHALL BE.

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1430 The small picture is an early work of the Master of the Votive Picture of Sankt Lambrecht, who for a long time was known to scholars by the name of Hans von Tübingen. In front of the golden background, which also extends over the frame, God the Father is supporting the tortured body of the dead Christ by His armpits. Though dead, Christ holds up His pierced right hand. The Dove of the Holy Ghost is hovering between them. Six angels are fluttering around the figures of the Holy Trinity, their gestures being directed towards Christ. The role of the Father is twofold. On the one hand, He is taking His Son back, thus accepting his sacrifice for mankind. Yet, the very same gesture serves to present and recommend this offering. This type of representation had developed in the surroundings of the French and Burgundian courts. In fact a tondo showing the same theme, by Jean Malouel, may have had a direct influence on the Vienna master. This is evinced not only by the iconographic resemblance of the two pictures; the memory of the round painting by Malouel may also have contributed to the composition of the Vienna panel. The representation seems to be opening up like a funnel from the green drapery of the bottom right corner. The helpless falling forward of the body of Christ appears to create a vortex, which sweeps the angels along too: it pushes away the one in the bottom right corner, while the one in the turquoise blue robe collapses backwards as though fainting. The symmetrical axis of the composition is the diagonal line running from the bottom right to the top left corner; the figures of Christ and of God the Father diverge at equal distances; the two angels in red also look like mirrored images of each other. The representation itself becomes condensed in the triangle under the other diagonal line. The almost tactile modelling of the bodies and the fact that not even the interpretation of the angels and of the Holy Ghost is stylized, but is based as much as possible on observed experience, are signs pointing to a further development of painting.

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1450 This type of representation of the Holy Trinity - the Man of Sorrows held by God the Father with the Holy Ghost in the likeness of a dove - was widely adopted in European art around 1400 when it was customary to show particular reverence for the dead Saviour. Though of unknown provenance, it is thought that the panel comes from the western border region of Hungary, and is the only known Hungarian example of this iconographic type in painting. The earliest similar representation known to us is an example of French Burgundian art from around 1380. Pictures with half-length figures developed under the powerful influence of representations of the Pietà in which the Man of Sorrows is held by one or more angels. In respect to half-length figures, this work is similar to the Münster panel by the Master of St. Veronica (1395-1415). In the type of head adopted for the figure of God the Father there is a certain relationship with the Sankt-Lambrecht votive panel (around 1430), now in Vienna, and with the Holy Trinity in the Hungarian National Gallery. The finely tooled haloes and border adornments were very popular in Viennese painting at the beginning of the fifteenth century. They can also be seen on other panels more Austrian in style. It is believed that this painting was once on the obverse of the right wing of a small triptych or diptych.

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1433-35 The mercy seat Master of Flamelle

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1454 del castagno Holy trinity, Jerome, and Two Saints

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1491 The altarpiece shows the Holy Trinity with Mary Magdalene, St John the Baptist and Tobias and the Angel The Holy Trinity appears as a vision between the penitent saints Magdalene and John in a bleak desert landscape. The Baptist is inviting the observer to worship the Trinity, and Mary Magdalene is turning to face it full of emotion. The exhausted figure of the penitent, a late work of Donatello's, had a decisive influence on Botticelli's Magdalene. The penitent sinner was the patron saint of the nuns' monastery of the Magdalenes, and this pala or altarpiece was ordered for their church. The figures of Tobias and the angel are very small compared to the others. They might be a reference to the donors of the altar, the guild of doctors and apothecaries: archangel Raphael was their patron saint.

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1505 Trinity and six saints pieter perugurion

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1510-1515 Master of James IV of Scotland visualized the complex Christian doctrine of the Trinity as three crowned figures seated on a throne that hovers in a glowing heavenly light. Each of the three figures is distinct from the waist up but they share one robe, signifying the Christian belief that the Trinity consists of three persons and one substance. In the ethereal space around the throne, transparent angels sing sanctus (Holy). During Church services in the hymn of adoration, sanctus is sung three times, once for each person of the Trinity. The artist delighted in plays of illusionism. The image's painted frame resembles a carved wooden frame of an altarpiece, suggesting an analogy between an altarpiece and the book. Three lines of text are written on an illusionistically painted slip of parchment, "pinned" to the page of the book to make it appear like a separate piece of parchment. A rubric in red identifies the following text as the prayer for Matins of the Hours of the Holy Trinity, to be read on Sunday. The text, in black ink, begins with a line from Psalm 50: Domine labia mea aperies (Lord, open my lips).

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1512 The wounded figure of the dead Christ supported by God the Father is revealed through the clouds. Above them is the dove representing the Holy Spirit. Together the three represent the Holy Trinity. On either side are the grieving figures of the Virgin and Saint John, supporting the body of Christ. They stand in a tomb of dark red marbled stone. The small figures kneeling on the grass below are probably the family who commissioned the painting from Baldung. Donors are often shown as diminutive to emphasise the distinction between them and the holy personages. The family's coats of arms are shown on the shields on either side of them. The coat of arms to the left is probably that of the Bettschold family of Strasbourg; the other may be that of the Rothschild family. The painting may have been made for St Pierre-le-Vieux in Strasbourg, with which the family were closely connected. Baldung's painting invites our imaginative participation by stressing the human emotions of the mourners, and presenting even God the Father simply as a grieving parent.

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1511 Dürer adoration of the trinitycreated his single panel altarpiece showing the Adoration of the Trinity, a celestial vision which forms an iconographical whole with the picture frame, for the wealthy merchant Matthäus Landauer. The Trinity is depicted with Christ on the Cross being supported by angels, the focal point of the heavenly gathering of saints. The crowd of martyrs on the left is led by Mary, and the group of Old Testament prophets and kings on the right by St John the Baptist. Clergymen and laypersons following the heads of the State and Church form the lowest horizontal zone in heaven. The artist depicts himself in the earthly zone in the manner of a secondary portrait. The client is the only layperson portrayed in the group of clergymen on the left, and he is being received into the heavenly community by a cardinal. Dürer prepared this detail in a portrait study. Matthäus Landauer had gained his wealth by trading in ore, and in 1501 had founded a home for twelve old craftsmen who had fallen on hard times, to which Chapel of All Saints was attached. In addition to the portrait of the donor, there is a second one in the picture, that of his son-in-law Wilhelm Haller.

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Disputation on the trinity andre del sarto 1517 same year as 95 theses

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1520 This innovative depiction of the Trinity, in which God the Father is a penumbra behind the striding figure of Christ and the dove of the Holy Spirit, was of such abiding interest to later Bergamasque artists that a number of them made it the basis of their own altarpieces.

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1577-78 Painted for the attic of the High Altarpiece of Santo Domingo el Antiguo, Toledo, to go above the Assumption. Probably painted 1577-78, following the Assumption. It was El Greco's first commission upon his arrival in Toleedo in 1577. It gained great fame in Toledo, which was artistically rather archaic and provincial, and established a successful career for El Greco in the town. Here the reference is to Rome, rather than to Venice, and specifically to Michelangelo, developing the motif of the Pietà. The general scheme of the composition of the Trinity, however, refers to Dürer's engraving of the same subject. The composition continues that of the Assumption below, slowing down the upward movement which finally comes to rest in the supported shoulders of Christ. Form is more in evidence here than in the Assumption, especially in the Michelangelesque motif of the naked Christ (for which the artist probably drew inspiration from Michelangelo's Pietà for Vittoria Colonna), and it is only later that he treats his figures with the same freedom as draperies. Here the suggestion of weight in the supported Dead Christ is appropriate. The stress on the dead body of Christ, together with the clamorous mannerist colors and the rather loose composition of the figures, produces a feverish pathos. El Greco was not to repeat this subject.

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1590 The painting can be called "Guercinesque", it anticipates the style of Guercino. Lodovico managed to express the transcendent in terms of great intimacy and sincere humanity, qualities that were to be indispensable in the formation of the young Guercino. The subject, very unusual at the time of the Counter-Reformation, goes back to a purely medieval iconographic idea. Instead of the traditional, hierarchical representation of the Trinity with God the Father between the Holy Spirit and Christ on the Cross, Lodovico combines this theme with a scene of the Pieta, in which Christ is received into the Father's arms rather than those of the Virgin and is surrounded by angels who bear the symbols of the Passion. The painting formerly was attributed to Annibale Carraci but this attribution was correctly changed in 1956 in favour of Lodovico.

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1604 When Rubens was working there the style of the influential painters of the Venetian cinquecento decisively set the trend in Mantua. This vast painting, with its colourful costumes and the relaxed portrayal of the children, cannot be imagined without the example of Titian's great votive pieces. The warm colouring and the sense of texture in the depiction of the sumptuous clothing of the princely family also look very Titianesque. This family portrait has a powerfully dynastic character. By portraying both the parents and the children of the reigning dukes of Mantua, it emphatically underlines the continuity of the dynasty. Rubens enormous canvas was badly damaged during the French siege of Mantua, so that parts of it were cut off, including the heads of several members of the family.

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1620 Hendrik Van Balen

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1681-2 The subject is a comparatively rare one, which occurs occasionally in the Netherlands and Spain in the 17th century. It derived from the Gospel episode of the return of Jesus from the Temple with Mary and Saint Joseph, the three figures forming an 'earthly' trinity with the dove and the figure of God the Father representing the 'heavenly' Trinity. According to Murillo's biographer, Palomino (1724), the painting was executed for Cádiz and belonged to a Marqués del Pedroso. Painted in Murillo's latest and most confident manner, it probably dates from about 1681/2, when the artist was working for the Capuchin church in Cádiz. The model for the Virgin appears in other works by the artist.

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1650?Antonio de pareda

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Adoration of the trinity 1791 lopez y portana

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1726 Jacob De Wit

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Wallace in Spain

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1935 From the Tour: Folk Arts of the Spanish Southwest from the Index of American Design One of the popular motifs for the "retablo" painter was the Holy Trinity "La Santisima Trinidad." This has always been a difficult subject for the artist to depict; the usual portrayal consists of the Father, the Son, and a dove representing the Holy Spirit. The version shown in this "retablo" originated in Byzantium. It portrays the Holy Trinity as three men. The Byzantine form was abandoned in Europe in 1745 because of a papal edict, but continued unchanged in Spanish America. full screen image

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Andrew congdon 1960