The Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 3

Title: Holy Trinity
Artist: Hendrick van Balen the Elder
Medium: Oil on panel  
Size: tbd.
Date: c. 1620s
Location: St. James' Church, Antwerp.

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me three french hens...

Three French Hens would most likely be representative of the Holy Trinity. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. In this painting Hendrick van Balen the Elder, a Flemish Baroque painter, has depicted the three in their traditional guises: God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit as a dove.

Trinity Pietà

Title: Trinity Pietà
Artist: Master of Sankt Laurenz
Medium: Oil on oak panel
Size: 23 x 16 cm
Date: 1415-30
Location: Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne.

Trinity Sunday, a moveable feast also known as Holy Trinity Sunday, is celebrated a week after Pentecost Sunday in honor of the most fundamental of Catholic beliefs - belief in the Holy Trinity. As expressed in the Athanasian creed (ascribed to Saint Athanasius, c. 296-373), “There is, therefore, one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits; and in this Trinity there is nothing first or later, nothing greater or less, but all three Persons are coeternal and coequal with one another, so that in every respect, as has already been said above, both unity in Trinity, and Trinity in unity must be venerated.”

The Man of Sorrows in the arms of God the Father with the Holy Ghost between them both is often termed a Trinity Pietà. The depiction is more common in French and Burgundian court painting from the end of the fourteenth century onwards. In this example, the Man of Sorrows is flanked by four angels, with two of them holding the Flagellation column, the scourge, the stick with the sponge and the lance. The panel is attributed to the Master of Sankt Laurenz (St Lawrence), the pupil of the Cologne Master of St Veronica. It is also assumed that this small panel was the left wing of a diptych having, on the right, a Mater Dolorosa.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 1 – ST JOSEPH

Title: St Joseph and the Infant Christ
Artist: Giovanni Battista Gaulli
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 127 x 97.2 cm
Date: c. 1670-85
Location: Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 1 – ST JOSEPH

St. Joseph, also known as Joseph of the House of David, Joseph the Betrothed, or Joseph the Worker is the husband of the Virgin Mary, the foster father of Jesus, and head of the Holy Family. Joseph is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran churches. The gospels describe Joseph as a "tekton" (τεκτων); traditionally the word has been taken to mean "carpenter", though the Greek term is much less specific. It cannot be translated narrowly; it evokes an artisan with wood in general, or an artisan in iron or stone. Very little other information on Joseph is given in the Gospels, but the little there is describes well enough who he was: "a righteous man" (Matthew 1:18). St. Joseph, as patron Saint of fathers, serves as an example about the importance of commitment to marriage, the family, and the importance of living an unstained moral life.

This intimate painting, with St. Joseph cradling the Christ child while bathed in a gentle light from above, provides a characteristic example of Baciccio's style of easel painting, which is vigorously Baroque in design and conception. The dynamic folds of drapery which envelop the figures are profoundly sculptural, and Baciccio's native Genoese traditions are evident in the dark background, the use of highly saturated, warm colors and the broad, painterly handling.

Giovanni Battista Gaulli (May, 1639 – April, 1709), also known as Baciccio, Il Baciccio or Baciccia (all Genoese nicknames for Giovanni Battista), was a painter of the Italian High Baroque verging onto that of the Rococo. Gaulli was born in Genoa, his Genoa a cosmopolitan Italian artistic center open to both commercial and artistic enterprises from north European countries, including countries with non-Catholic populations such as England and the Dutch provinces. He soon, however, moved to Rome. In 1662, he was accepted into the Roman artists' guild, the Accademia di San Luca (Academy of Saint Luke), where he was to later hold several offices. At his height, Gaulli was one of Rome's most esteemed portrait painters, though he is best known for his grand, Gianlorenzo Bernini-influenced illusionistic vault fresco in the church of the Gesù in Rome.

The Trinity with the Dead Christ

Title: The Trinity with the Dead Christ

Artist: Ludovico Carracci

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 173 x 127 cm

Date: c. 1590

Location: Pinacoteca, Vatican.

According to the Trinity doctrine, God exists as three persons, or hypostases, but is one single divine nature. Some faiths profess that, in addition, the second person of the Trinity — God the Son — assumed human nature as Jesus, so that he has two natures (and hence two wills), and is really and fully both true God and true human. As stated in the Chalcedonian Creed: “truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and body”.

In this painting Lodovico managed to express the transcendent in terms of great intimacy and sincere humanity, qualities that were to be indispensable in the formation of artists such as the young Guercino. The subject, very unusual at the time of the Counter-Reformation, goes back to a purely medieval iconographic idea. Instead of the traditional, hierarchical representation of the Trinity, Lodovico combines this theme with a scene of the Pieta, in which Christ is received into the Father's arms rather than those of the Virgin.

Ludovico (or Lodovico) Carracci (April 1555 – November 1619) was an Italian, early-Baroque painter, etcher, and printmaker born in Bologna. The Carracci was a family of Bolognese painters, the brothers Agostino (1557-1602) and Annibale (1560-1609) were cousins of Lodovico, and were prominent figures at the end of the 16th century in the movement against the prevailing Mannerist artificiality of Italian painting. Lodovico was by temperament a fairly shy person who never found real success, unlike his cousin Annibale. Lodovico left Bologna only for brief periods and directed the Carracci academy by himself after his cousins left for Rome. His work, at its best, is highly personal and has a passionate and poetic quality.

Holy Trinity

Title: Holy Trinity

Artist: Jusepe de Ribera

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 226 × 118 cm

Date: 1636

Location: Museo del Prado, Madrid.

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. In this painting Ribera has depicted the three in their traditional guises: God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the dove of the Holy Spirit.

Ribera was a great exponent of Caravaggism, and his rise to prominence in Naples further entrenched Caravaggism as the dominant mode there. With the Holy Trinity, however, he had moved further from Caravaggio's example, lightening his palette and increasing the painterliness of his brushwork. Ribera still employed the distinct shift between light and dark, most notably around the figure of Jesus, which allows the nimbus around God the Father to radiate.

Jusepe de Ribera (January 12, 1591 - September 2, 1652) was a Spanish painter and printmaker, also known in Spanish as José de Ribera. Almost nothing is known of his training in Spain, although it is possible, as some experts have suggested, that he had some contact with Francisco Ribalta. In Italy, where all his mature work was done, he was known as Giuseppe Ribera or Lo Spagnoletto, "the Little Spaniard". By 1644 he was so renowned that he was knighted by the pope.