DOI Kapitel:
Plate 1-XCIII
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62036#0149
67
PLATE XXXIII.
THE TRINITY.
It might be thought that this was a subject to have deterred all attempts at
representation; but, on the contrary, there is none that more frequently appears in
all styles of Christian Art, and none in which greater variety of efforts have been
made to translate the symbols of language into the symbolic forms of Art; as we
might expect, therefore, there is no class of subjects in which the material spirit of
the Middle Ages is more strikingly apparent. As in the representations of the
First Person of the Trinity, this spirit was found to have gone on increasing in strength
as time advanced, so it is with these subjects. During the first eight centuries of
Christian Art the idea of the Trinity was but imperfectly developed, and there is no
complete instance of it amongst the paintings and sculptures of the Catacombs; for
though the Three Persons are represented there separately, they are never united in
one group. The first time we hear of their being placed together is in the 4th
century, when a Mosaic was executed in the Basilica of Nola, representing the Three
Persons under the forms of the Hand *, the Lamb, and the Dove: but this is no longer
existing, and is known only by description; it proves, however, that the first attempts
at embodying this awful and mysterious subject were simple, and strictly symbolical,
and merely aimed at combining the three distinct symbols in one group. The first
existing examples differ but slightly from this early description, and are found in
the Mosaics of the old Italian Churches.f
* It is not expressly stated that the First Person of
the Trinity was represented by this symbol, but it most
probably was so.
f Those in the church of S. Cosmo and S. Damian,
6th century, and in S. Praxede, of the 9th, according to
Ciampini, do not represent this subject; as he considers
the Bird, seated on a Palm tree, to be a Phoenix, the em-
blem of Immortality, and not the Dove.
PLATE XXXIII.
THE TRINITY.
It might be thought that this was a subject to have deterred all attempts at
representation; but, on the contrary, there is none that more frequently appears in
all styles of Christian Art, and none in which greater variety of efforts have been
made to translate the symbols of language into the symbolic forms of Art; as we
might expect, therefore, there is no class of subjects in which the material spirit of
the Middle Ages is more strikingly apparent. As in the representations of the
First Person of the Trinity, this spirit was found to have gone on increasing in strength
as time advanced, so it is with these subjects. During the first eight centuries of
Christian Art the idea of the Trinity was but imperfectly developed, and there is no
complete instance of it amongst the paintings and sculptures of the Catacombs; for
though the Three Persons are represented there separately, they are never united in
one group. The first time we hear of their being placed together is in the 4th
century, when a Mosaic was executed in the Basilica of Nola, representing the Three
Persons under the forms of the Hand *, the Lamb, and the Dove: but this is no longer
existing, and is known only by description; it proves, however, that the first attempts
at embodying this awful and mysterious subject were simple, and strictly symbolical,
and merely aimed at combining the three distinct symbols in one group. The first
existing examples differ but slightly from this early description, and are found in
the Mosaics of the old Italian Churches.f
* It is not expressly stated that the First Person of
the Trinity was represented by this symbol, but it most
probably was so.
f Those in the church of S. Cosmo and S. Damian,
6th century, and in S. Praxede, of the 9th, according to
Ciampini, do not represent this subject; as he considers
the Bird, seated on a Palm tree, to be a Phoenix, the em-
blem of Immortality, and not the Dove.