Giotto Teaches the Trinity
In the following presentation, I leverage Giotto’s masterful 14-century fresco, “The Baptism of Christ,” to clarify and elucidate trinitarian truths, particularly regarding the relational dynamics of the Trinity and how the Triune God pursues us through Christ in the Holy Spirit. The selected artwork encourages us to use our imaginations as we seek to grasp that which remains out of reach to reason alone. Beauty reveals Truth.
Catholic Tradition embraces both truth and beauty as mechanisms for approaching God; this presentation, like the piece it showcases, aims to shed light on the Trinity through this artistic representation of Christ’s Baptism. By no means is it meant to be a comprehensive or exhaustive explanation of the Trinity, but rather an exploration of how art and beauty can teach us to better understand the character and work of our Triune God. These visual representations of the three persons of the Trinity not only show us the nature of the Triune God’s internal relationship but illuminate the way the Trinity works by showing us how it moves. The placement of the persons in the piece conveys a sense of motion that reinforces the mediatorial formula.
I invite you to join me as I reflect more on this beautiful mystery –– with the inimitable Giotto as our guide.
Now watch the following video presentation.
Included below are my sources along with an outline of the key points covered.
Thanks for taking this journey with me. I hope it helped you see the Trinity a little more clearly than before.
Key Points Covered
Beauty has the extraordinary ability to articulate truth; religious art teaches us a tremendous amount about the Trinity; the transcendent nature of God reveals itself in beauty.
In “The Function of Art,” Pope Pius XII tells us that “one of the essential characteristics of art, ... a certain intrinsic ‘affinity’ of art with religion, ... in certain ways renders artists interpreters of the infinite perfections of God, and particularly of the beauty and harmony of God’s creation.”
This depiction of Christ’s Baptism not only beautifully tells that story but also reveals a deeper narrative: of a relational God’s pursuit of us.
When it comes to the Trinity, we must recognize the inherent tension present in any discussion about a Triune God; this tension is not a matter of contradiction but of incomprehensibility … at the very least, it reminds us of our inability to fully understand something so marvelous and mysterious.
“The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the "mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God". To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel's faith before the Incarnation of God's Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.”
Incomprehensible though it may be, it’s not out of reach: God makes Himself known to us through the Son together with the Spirit.
To help our human minds grasp the divine, it is helpful to focus on the interrelationship between the persons of the Trinity: rather than focusing on the Trinity’s structure, let us zoom in on the dynamic way the Triune God actually works.
Let’s take another look at the painting … the Triune relationship is on full display in Giotto’s timeless fresco, “The Baptism of Christ,” which showcases the Trinity at work in its depiction of Christ’s baptism.
Remember the mediatorial formula: “to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.” This is revealed in reverse by Giotto, who shows the Father pouring love down on us through his incarnate Son, all in the Holy Spirit.
As the opening act to the Renaissance, Giotto introduces a three dimensionality to his art, which accentuates the trinitarian quality of his “Baptism of Christ.”
He is the artistic connecting point between the Medieval emphasis on symbolism and scale and the Renaissance’s celebration of exquisite realism — a synthesis that is ideal for communicating the mysteries of the Faith.
In the painting, as in life, Christ bridges the gap between the divine and the human, both in his very nature and in his placement in between the crowded banks.
The trinitarian movement focuses on the Father sending the Holy Spirit and the Son down to earth, down to us.
The grace of the Father’s gift pours out upon the world, both through the Spirit and the Son, everywhere at once yet temporally incarnate.
The piece bears a mystical quality that helps ground the viewer in the incomprehensible, the divine, while retaining enough detail to be realistic.
The artwork succeeds in large part due to the way it mirrors the Trinity itself — for the beautiful depiction is at once symbolic and realistic — and Giotto’s historical context and artistic style (end of the Medieval and start of the Renaissance) ideally position him to express the beautiful mysteries of the Trinity through paint.
Bibliography
Anatolios, Khaled, and Brian Daley. Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011.
Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica, Second Article, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, n.d.).
Augustine, Edmund Hill, and John E. Rotelle. The Trinity. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2015.
Augustine of Hippo, “Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel according to St. John,” in St. Augustin: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. John Gibb and James Innes, vol. 7, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888), 41–42.
Catholic Biblical Association (Great Britain), The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1994), Jn 1:32–34.
Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 314, 360.
Emery, Gilles. “The Best Guide for Understanding the Trinity.” Church Life Journal, January 27, 2021.
Pius XII. The Function of Art: Address of Pope Pius XII. Washington, D.C.: National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1952.
Rusch, William G. The Trinitarian Controversy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1980.
The Catholic Encyclopedia. Denver, Colo.: New Advent, 2003.
W. Hall Harris III et al., eds., The Lexham English Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012), Mk 1:9–11.