Assignment
3: Analyzing Visual Rhetoric
Masaccio’s
1427 Trinity
Fall 2012
Introduction
In the selection from Perspective
as Symbolic Form
that has been assigned for this course, Erwin Panofsky maintains that the
vanishing point in Renaissance painting served as a pictorial device to
represent the infinite within the image. In lecture, we have been exploring how
specific paintings (Perugino’s Christ
Handing the Keys to Saint Peter and Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation) utilize that hint of infinity
implied by the vanishing point to formulate different sorts of relationships
between the viewer and the divine.
Masaccio’s Holy Trinity of 1427 employs the vanishing point in much the same way. The painting’s linear perspective creates an illusion of depth; indeed, the space it appears to carve out is rather complex, with several distinct subdivisions and layers (which Professor Herbert describes in lecture). It fills these spaces with four groups of human figures: the three “persons” of the Trinity (God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit), the Virgin Mary and Saint John at the foot of the cross (as if at the site of the Crucifixion on Golgotha), a pair of donors to the church (contemporaries of Masaccio), and a skeleton laid out on a sarcophagus below. Linear perspective in The Holy Trinity posits one additional subject for this picture: the viewer, nominally standing at the viewpoint directly opposite the vanishing point.
Assignment
In this essay, 5-6 pages in
length, you will analyze the pictorial dynamics of Masaccio’s Holy
Trinity of 1427. Your task is to formulate a thesis and marshal
specific visual evidence to show how The Holy Trinity deploys its spaces, its depicted
figures, and its posited viewer for the sake of establishing a connection—but
also a distance—between that viewer and the divine.
Steps in
the Process
Your argument must provide an
account of the placement of the vanishing point within the picture, and how
that placement contributes to the meaning of the painting. You may find it
useful to incorporate into your essay some points from Erwin Panofsky
concerning perspective, the vanishing point, and the viewer’s relation to the
divine; so, you should review Panofsky’s essay carefully. Remember, however,
that your paper is about The Holy Trinity, not about “Perspective as Symbolic Form.” Your principal (perhaps only)
source will be the painting itself.
To
assist you in locating and analyzing Masaccio’s The Holy Trinity, the
http://libguides.lib.uci.edu/humcore
When you have completed the
Library Research Assignment, formulate a “working” thesis statement and return to
your “brainstorm” list to develop claims about the visual evidence that support
your thesis. Ultimately, your paper should touch on all major aspects of the
picture, but the order in which you present your observations should be
structured by your argument. Not all observations from your “brainstorm” list
will make it into the paper; only those that contribute
to the building of your argument.
Successful essays will include these critical elements:
a) Arguable claims. A successful
essay will include a nuanced, highly arguable thesis. The body paragraphs will not
merely describe the painting but will analyze how the visual elements posit a
specific relation between the viewer and the divine.
b) Well-articulated evidence
culled from careful looking at the painting. The visual elements of the
painting must first be described before being analyzed as projecting a
particular attitude about the relationship between the viewer and the divine.
Only the visual elements that structure your analysis should be included in
your descriptions of the visual evidence. More specific and controlled
descriptions of the visual elements will lead to better analysis of the
painting.
c) Well-developed warrants.
d) A successful incorporation of
Panofsky’s ideas about Renaissance perspective to support your thesis about
Masaccio’s painting.
e) A developing argument, where
each paragraph is progressing toward a culminating “view” of the painting that coincides
with your thesis.
As you begin the drafting process
for Assignment 3, you should also devote substantial attention to the concepts
and arguments in the following chapters:
