Trinity With The Virgin Leon Battista Alberti Analysis

Leon Battista Alberti has written books on painting as being the foundation of art and other art styles such as architecture and sculpting. As a Renaissance man, Alberti took interest in science and math, incorporating it into his paintings and into his criteria for what he considered to be a successful artwork. Most successful renaissance paintings follow his criteria, incorporating values such as science, math, Humanism, the classical styles of Rome/Greece, mythology and Christianity. Both the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli and Trinity with the Virgin by Masaccio have incorporated some of these values in the artwork. Although both are considered to be high pieces of art from this era, I believe Alberti would prefer Trinity with the Virgin
According to Alberti, there are three essential components to any painting: circumscription, composition and reception of light. Circumscription, or the outline of the painting, is essential in order for the composition and light to be praised. The outline for him should be light, because they show like cracks within a painting once it’s completed. Alberti also talks about using a veil, or a grid, when creating the outline in order to make it more accurate with nature. “A further advantage is that the position of the outlines and the boundaries of the surfaces can easily be established accurately on the painting panel; for just as you see the forehead in one parallel, the nose is the next, the cheeks in another, the chin in one below, and everything in its particular place, so you can situate precisely all the features on the panel or wall which you have similarly divided into appropriate parallels.” (Alberti, pg.4) This grid-like system can also be used to create circular surfaces in one-point perspective, creating circles from rectangles. His veil allows for accurate proportions using a fixed surfaced with divides to mark out certain features to see the painting in sections to help the
We also have multiple figures in different poses, with Mary (identifiable by her halo) facing us as she points to Christ. We have themes of christianity, with the Father (God behind Christ), the Son (Christ crucified) and the Holy Spirit (Dove above Christ) all being depicted along with Mary, Joseph and devoters on the side. We see that the coffers behind God and Christ act as the orthogonals leading down to the transversal, the line at the bottom of the cross. The coffers are done in a one-point perspective to give depth and add the optical illusion of space while bringing more attention to the main subject, the holy trinity of father, son and holy spirit. We see emphasis on Christ’s body structure,which allows us to almost feel the actual pain of him being hanged by his own body weight. We see latin words on the bottom above a skeleton, which tells us that death is unavoidable, and that we will all become the skeleton one day. I believe that Alberti would praise this work even though some of the bodies are posed similarly because of all the detail within the architecture, the one point perspective illusion of depth and space, and because of the subject