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| Albrecht Dürer Adoration of the Holy Trinity (Landauer Altarpiece) 1511 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
The Three Persons
God the Father holds in his extended hands the arms of the Cross to which Christ is nailed. Eternally crucified, eternally buried, eternally resurrected. Angels hold open the paternal golden mantel lined in green. The figure of Christ occupies a triangle with its point at the bottom, the Father occupies another (superimposed on the first) with its point at the top. Together, the two shapes form a Seal of Solomon. Suspended above is the dove of the Holy Spirit.
Celestial Hierarchies
Father and Son combine almost like a double exposure. Troops of angels with complete bodies partially encircle this image. Another circle is deployed around the dove, but these are cherubs composed of nothing but heads.
Beyond this central grouping, numerous saints are ranged, males on the right, females on the left. We see David with his harp, Moses with the Tablets of the Law, Agnes with her lamb, Catherine with her wheel.
Below this chorus of the elect, a second crowd includes, on the left, the Pope and a Cardinal with a group of women who could be nuns, and on the right, the Holy Roman Emperor with several warriors and another contingent of women.
All these beings are suspended in the sky above an immense landscape, but compared to the celestial population its details are minuscule: a large river in the center, with shorelines, rocks, trees and clouds spreading away on either side.
Signatures
At right within the landscape stands a man who is Albrecht Dürer himself: this is a signature "in person" on the painting. He offers it to the spectator, and of course also to the divinities and worthies in the sky.
The artist rests his hand on an engraved slab that certifies it is indeed "Albrecht Dürer who made this picture in 1511 at the season of the birth of Christ." This message is signed with the Dürer monogram, an "A" enclosing a "D" – the given name apparently more significant than the family name. A triple signature, which corresponds to the image of the Holy Trinity. And that, without even speaking of the generalized signature constituted by the painting itself.
– translated and adapted from Le Musée imaginaire de Michel Butor: 105 œuvres décisives de la peinture occidentale (Paris: Flammarion, 2019)