(mellow jazz music)
- [Steven] We're in Santa Maria Novella,
an enormous Dominican church in Florence.
We've just come in from a cloistered graveyard.
The first thing we see across this enormous expanse
is Masaccio's The Holy Trinity
with the Virgin and St. John.
- [Beth] Although this painting has a long
and complicated history of being moved and restored,
the doorway we walked in and the view that we got
was likely the view that the public got
in the early 15th century when Masaccio painted it.
- [Steven] Much of the rest of the church has changed.
There may have been an altar in front of this painting.
To the right, there would have been an enormous tramezzo,
that is a screen that would have blocked access
to the inner sanctum of the church.
- [Beth] The subject is the Holy Trinity.
According to Catholic doctrine,
God is God the Father, the Son Christ and the Holy Spirit.
- [Steven] This was a fairly standard motif,
this elder figure that represents God the Father,
the dove representing the Holy Spirit
and Christ on a crucifix.
This is known as
the Throne of Mercy.
The idea is that this throne is the throne of judgment,
that through Christ, man can be saved.
- [Beth] On the side of the Holy Trinity,
we see Mary.
She gestures to Christ and God.
She acts as an intercessor,
an intermediary between us and the divine world
and points to Christ and God.
- [Steven] Opposite her stands St. John.
- [Beth] All of those divine figures occupy the same space.
Outside of that space, we see two kneeling figures,
a man on the left, a woman on the right.
These are the patrons who commissioned this fresco.
If you look at them closely,
you see that they look straight ahead.
- [Steven] And slightly up.
- [Beth] They're in a position of prayer, of contemplation.
- [Steven] Below this, we have a memento mori
that is a reminder of death.
We see a tomb,
two columns on either side,
and between that, a sarcophagus.
But laid on top of that is a skeleton.
In back of it, as if carved into stone, is an inscription.
- [Beth] I was as you are.
And what I am, you soon will be.
This is written in Italian, not in Latin,
so not in the language of the church,
but in the everyday language of the people of Florence.
It is reminding us that our time on earth is short,
and death could come at any time.
We should be preparing for our salvation.
- [Steven] It's a reminder that this painting
had multiple audiences.
It had the Dominican clergy of this church.
But there was a secondary audience,
the lay people of Florence that were allowed
into this part of the church.
- [Beth] We have to imagine the Dominican friars preaching
in front of this image to the citizens of Florence,
who would come specifically to hear that preaching.
People would come to visit their loved ones
in the cemetery, just outside in the cloister.
They'd walk through the door,
and they would see this image and make a connection
between the death of their loved ones
and their own mortality.
- [Steven] Although this motif was common,
almost anybody looking at this painting
in the early 15th century would have recognized
the changes that Masaccio has brought to this motif,
principally, the classicism of the architecture
and the naturalism of the figures.
- [Beth] In most representations of this,
Christ and God are placed in the mandorla,
that is a kind of enormous halo
that encompassed both figures and in that way,
situated them in an otherworldly, heavenly space.
But here, Masaccio has given us
what looks like ancient Roman architecture.
And in fact, Brunelleschi,
the great early Renaissance architect,
likely helped design the architectural framework
that we see here.
On either side, we see fluted pilasters.
Those have Corinthian or composite capitals.
- [Steven] A pilaster is really a flattened column--
- [Beth] one that's attached to a wall.
- [Steven] Above that is an entablature and a cornice
with dentils, another ancient Roman motif.
- [Beth] The figures of the Trinity are framed
by a round arch which is a classical arch,
not a pointed,
medieval Gothic arch.
That arch is carried by two attached columns
with Ionic capitals.
Everything that we're describing here
is taken directly from ancient Greek and Roman architecture.
- [Steven] Behind the arch, we see a barrel vault
that's defined by a beautiful series of coffers
with alternating colors.
At the very back of the space,
we can see a secondary arch.
So we have a very rational space, a measurable space,
a space that makes sense.
- [Beth] And it makes sense precisely
because Masaccio is using linear perspective.
This is one of the earliest uses of linear perspective,
rediscovered by Brunelleschi less than a decade before.
Masaccio is using linear perspective
to create a convincing illusion that this is not a wall,
but in fact, the space of a chapel.
- [Steven] The linear perspective is made
of three components, most importantly, a vanishing point.
According to Alberti, who published a book
called "On Painting," soon after this painting was made,
linear perspective works best
when the vanishing point is at the eye level of the viewer.
And indeed, that is precisely where Masaccio has placed it.
It's in the center of the composition,
just a few inches above my eye level.
From it radiate a series of orthogonals,
illusionistic diagonals that appear to recede in space.
They are the agent that create the illusion
of depth on a flat surface.
And then, the third piece is the horizon line,
defined by that bottom step.
- [Beth] And Masaccio exploits chiaroscuro,
that movement from light to dark
to create a sense of volume.
So we see the ribcage lifted up.
We see the muscles in the abdomen, the muscles in the arms.
We sense the pull of Christ's weight from the cross.
This interest in naturalistic human anatomy
is a key feature of the early Renaissance.
- [Steven] Here again is a correspondence
with the work of the architect and sculptor, Brunelleschi,
who produced a wooden crucifix
which is also in Santa Maria Novella
which like the painted rendering before us,
expresses the artist's careful observation
of the human body and understands it, responding to gravity,
a reminder that Christ here is human,
has suffered, has died.
Both Brunelleschi and Masaccio could look back a century
to another great Italian master, Giotto,
and his massive Crucifixion.
He was perhaps one of the first artists
to begin to think about the representation
of the human body, using light and shadow
to define its forms, to begin to pay attention
to the anatomy of the body, to render Christ as physical.
- [Beth] One of the most remarkable things
to me is God's foot.
There we have a perfectly foreshortened foot
and therefore, a sense that God is standing.
To me, that epitomizes what the Renaissance is about,
this interpretation of divine figures
as having all of the qualities that human beings have.
- [Steven] So there is this wonderful conflict
between the visionary and the actual.
- [Beth] So although the laity couldn't go beyond
the tramezzo, Masaccio is giving the public
a taste of what's beyond by quoting some works of art
in the Strozzi Chapel.
- [Steven] In that chapel, above the altar,
is an image of God.
And then, just before the chapel and below,
there's a tomb with a fresco of the Lamentation.
So there is a correspondence,
perhaps even a deliberate quote
in Masaccio's painting
in the public part of the church.
- [Beth] What we're seeing is this very frontal image
of God, of the Divine, presenting to us
the sacrifice that God has made on our behalf.
It's remarkable that this has survived,
and we get to see it in its original location.