Exterior Space & Internal Perspective, Masaccio’s Trinity A844 Ex 1.5.2

1.     Go to Columbia Univeristy’s MCID to view a panoramic virtual image of Santa Maria Novella

2.     You want the interior that contains Masaccio’s Trinità (Figure 1.2); this is titled ‘Interior: Nave Panorama’

3.     Facing the main altar of the church, move to the left until you are in front of Masaccio’s Trinità (Figure 1.2).

Consider how the artist has treated space in the painting and in relation to the church interior.

Also consider the relationship between the individuals depicted. How is it similar to or different from the chapels and their paintings near it?

5.     Now do a search for ‘Masaccio trinity’ on ARTstor.

You will find a number of images, including a perspective diagram that demonstrates how Masaccio created the perspective.

I had a go at this exercise but rather floundered with the prospect of using the virtual environment as a means of relating to interior space. It made me feel that the answer could only relate to the experience of digital space which is so disembodied. Relating to space is surely about proxemics of a kind that can’t be equivalence in virtual tour technology – and that includes sense of one’s own and other people’s body motion and a whole raft of sense impressions other than just the visual. The whole idea is interesting but has to be about the digital and virtual – where surely space is a different phenomenon as is time and motion.

So I thought I’d examine the pedagogy here instead – jumping to the attached Discussion and the learning goals identified in paragraph 2. Here is a very strong reading of the distribution of imagined space through the iconic use of perspective that is very Panofskian. Every aspect of space in the Discussion is treated therefore as contributory to a unitary meaning that celebrates the institutions of church, state and private wealth – including ideologies of hierarchy and necessary mediation. I have no doubt that this accords with contemporary Renaissance thought patterns but it fails to teach us to look at the signs and symptoms of space (the visual and two-dimensional ones at least available through the exercise. So this is what I thought I would concentrate on in the interests of my own autonomous learning.

My point generally is that course such as this MA SHOULD be sharing and facilitating this aim rather than ending up in one-way feedback. Of course, to be fair, this may be being done in the Forums. But I’ve chickened out of that space of chat and enforced intellectual constriction.

The sentence that does potentially point us to autonomous thought for me is this: “Through the use of illusion, the painting acts both as a chapel (architecture) and as a painting.”

This opens up the question of space that for me is vital in comparing visual and proxemics issues in the two stills on this page.

Of course the perspective from the virtual tour is unusual – only one of those moving body parts take in as they assess a picture and its spatial environment – but the contrasts are telling. The elimination of God the Father in reflected light may be a phenomenon related to the reproductive media, as indeed the reflection of the back-lighting in those tremendous arches of intersecting light that frame and highlight features of the painting. The reflected arc touches the smaller painted arc in the painting and can seem visually to radiate from, rather than on, the Godhead. It is hard to know how much this is an effect of introduced extraneous lighting necessary to the digital performance of this tour and how much from lighting effects that reflect circumambient everyday lighting and architecture. Moreover in the Renaissance lighting would have been another thing altogether and certainly not regular in the way modern lighting obediently can be in the interests of performative meaning-making.  

But what is clear is that the relation between the artefact as a painting and its perspective-created reflection in two dimensions of three-dimensional surrounding architecture is far from complementary (in either sense of the word). Even the momento mori to the base insists on this. The internal deceptive depths of the Trinity are clearly still a picture to any gaze and this is captured by the fact that not only does its internal architecture reflect the external but that it uses the external architecture to emphasise its very ‘framed-ness’ as art. The parallels of frames (arcs and parallel faux columns make Masaccio’s contribution competitive with the art of the church itself, ensuring that we attribute to Masaccio a creative power akin to the church architects and builders together and to God the creator with His Hands supporting the structures of pain, suffering and acceptance so endemic to the Christian message.

Masaccio has built and supported the crucifixion itself, the prime sculptural architecture of this piece. The balance of hanging from and supporting the structure of the Church is, I think, integral to the piece. This is stressed in those wondrous painted capitals to the painted columns. But it is not the sole meaning of the art, which depends on many perspectives. For instance see how the Masaccio ‘human’ contrasts with the gilded cross on the ornate pulpit in its proximity, from another less direct perspective. My view is that Masaccio’s framed architecture questions the pretension of its surroundings and the potential artifice in its purposes (whether Masaccio ‘intended’ that or not).

The paragone represented by this piece is that the painting unlike the real building represents the spirit not just the body – the Holy Ghost almost missing from the pictured Trinity. This is an excellent religious affirmation and honours the Church of his day but it is also a display of Masaccio as creative genius, using context, audience and space to ensconce and embellish his own art.

As the discussion says, “A lot more could be said about this painting”, but the point is not increasing the volume of commentary pedagogically but opening up debate qualitatively between learners facilitated into autonomy, at whatever stage. These kinds of end-staged discussions, feeding into a pedagogic system dependent on one-way feedback only, as OU is thus dependent currently, are dangerous signs of a learning institution not looking to its central purpose but instead to the structure of higher education currently and uncritically.