The Trinity c. 1500

This small devotional image of the Trinity was made with simple materials – ink and watercolor on parchment. The image depicts God the Father, holding Christ on the cross, the Holy Spirit as a small child to the side. What’s interesting here is the way the unknown artist used line to create areas of flat color, almost like a coloring book. Notice how the blue paint is applied freely, with visible brushstrokes and inconsistencies, and a pattern made with hatching fills the cross. The artist probably would have used simple tools, such as quills and brushes, to create this image. The imperfections in the way the materials were applied suggest that the image was made outside of the courtly workshop, intended for private devotion, rather than public display. This reveals the ways in which the same religious subject matter could take different forms, depending on the social context of its production. What might appear as a naive style reflects a different set of aesthetic values, where devotion takes precedence over refinement.