lumière

Massacio's Trinity by Rona Goffen Series: Masterpieces of Western Painting Publishing house: Cambridge University Press Number of pages: 166 Publication date: 1998 Review: This book is an interesting assembly of essays devoted to various topics which are relevant for the better understanding of the fresco's provenience and significance. They present an aspectual outlook of the Masaccio's masterpiece and analyse the most prominent features of the painting such as the use of the linear perspective, the depiction of cadaver or the possible identity and social status of the commissioners.  All in all, the book offers a comprehensive guide to the fresco and allows the reader to fully cherish this amazing artwork. 

Massacio's Trinity is considered to be one of the defining paintings of the Italian Renaissance. It is also seen as one of most important artworks in all of the Western tradition thanks to it revolutionary use of linear perspective - something that had disappeared out of the European art history records in the centuries that came after the fall of the West Roman Empire.  A 588.8 x 211.6 cm rectangular fresco, which is to be found in Santa Maria Novella, a Dominican church in Florence, in Italy, is a multidimensional painting created in a exceptionally interesting transitionary period of Italian art.  To fully understand a painting such as the one created by Massacio, one has to take into careful consideration all of the aspects that accompanied the artwork's creation. A work of art does not simply function in a contextless void. The idea of "l'art pour l'art" as much as it might seem tempting for the post-modernistic viewer, is achronological and limiting....