Painting of the Week - The Holy Trinity by Masaccio

Masaccio (Tomasso di Giovanni), The Holy Trinity, 1420

Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy
(Source)

Until and during most of the Renaissance, sculpture and architecture were considered the superior arts. This changed when Brunelleschi, loser of the Baptistery doors competition, 'discovered' vanishing points - the optical phenomenon that objects get smaller and disappear into a point into the horizon, like when two parallel lines of trees appearing to converge together. This opened up the ability for artists to create landscapes and figures which looked more real and had depth. And to have a bit of fun if they wanted!

The Holy Trinity is a key piece demonstrating early linear perspective and it's been speculated that Brunelleschi may have advised Masaccio on how to create the vaulted space in the painting. It shows God the Father, Christ on the cross, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove with the Madonna (looking out of the painting, St. John the Evangelist, plus the two kneeling donors of the work. Under this scene is a skeleton representing Adam.

While the space in which the scene occurs is depicted as being 'real', it's not entirely logical with the main problem being exactly where God the Father is meant to be located in the space. This spatial problem given that Masaccio appears to have known what he was doing has led people to speculate that he was trying to symbolically show that God works outside of mathematics and is therefore beyond ordinary constraints of the world.