Holy Trinity Icon

The Trinity icon (Russian троица, scientific transliteration troica ) by Andrei Rublev is considered to be one of the highlights of Russian painting. The same motif is also found on countless other icons throughout the Orthodox area.

The resulting painting is about 1411 142 x 114 cm in size. The masterpiece of icon painting is also a theology in color. The representation of the Trinity by Rublev 1551 referred to by a Moscow Synod as dogmatic exemplary and authentic.

Today, the icon is displayed in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

The image represents the Trinity is not directly because direct pictorial representations of God the Father are in Orthodoxy unusual (since it no handed down in the Bible is the incarnate image of God the Father ). It symbolizes rather based on a scene from the Old Testament: the visit of the three angels messengers with Abraham and Sarah ( Genesis 1 18.1 to 33 ). The three angels sitting around a table on which a chalice. Each of the three persons holding a wand, the symbol of authority, all three have followed the same divine authority. An older tradition of the subject also shows Abraham and Sarah as they serve the three angels.

The table is the symbol of the altar, the chalice is the symbol of the divine victim of the Eucharist and each of the three persons shows with a flick of her relationship with him. The three figures are very similar but not identical; However, there are no rank or age differences can be seen.

The assignment of the three figures to the three persons of the Trinity is controversial. Some support the thesis, the Father may be represented by the figure in the middle; he points two fingers on the cup so as to draw attention to the divine and human nature of the sacrificial lamb. The son, left, seen from the observer (the son sits at the right hand of the Father ), has his hand raised in a blessing gesture and showing that he accepts the item, which is appointed unto him. The Holy Spirit, the right of the son shows a rectangular hole in the table, which symbolizes the world and thus has pointed out that the mission of the Son is happening in the world and the salvation of the world.

Others take the view that the figure in the middle is the son. The father is left in the picture, the other two figures tend to him. This view is more convincing for the following reasons: 1 have soon succeed Rublev clearly labeled the figure in the middle as Christ. 2 Does the figure in the middle of the clothes that always carries the Christ, namely red tunic and green and blue outer garment and 3 gives the contents of Christ as mentioned in the next section calyx the most sense.

The two figures on the left and right, with their silhouettes together a chalice, which includes the middle figure. At the same time a cross is shown, formed from the three heads in the horizontal - and in the vertical from the middle figure of the cup on the table and the world.

The "wrong" perspective ( the vanishing point is located in front of the picture) involves the viewer can share it on the holy event.