Crossing Confessional Lines
in Georg Mack the Elder's Painted Version of Hieronymus
Wiericx's Trinity
Walter S. Melion,
The Johns Hopkins University
Engraved by Hieronymus
Wiericx after a design by Crispin van den Broeck, The Trinity depicts a variant of the subject known
as the Throne of Mercy, in which God the Father, accompanied
by the Holy Spirit, proffers the broken body of Christ
the Man of Sorrows. Seated on the shroud and worshiped
by angels, Jesus is offered by God in a liturgy of
eternal sacrifice, his wounds and semi-recumbent pose
alluding to the crucifixion, his other attributes
confirming the resurrection that secures the promise
of salvation. First issued by the Antwerp print publisher
Hans van Luyck, and later hand-colored by Georg Mack
the Elder of Nuremberg, the print was likely executed
between 1580 and 1588, when Wiericx worked closely
with several Antwerp publishers, among them Hans Liefrinck,
Jean-Baptiste Vrints, and Van Luyck. Whereas the Throne
of Mercy commonly invokes the Supplices prayer of
the Canon of the Mass, Van den Broeck and Wiericx
illustrate Isaiah 42 (the print's inscription paraphrases
the opening line), adapting the traditional iconography
to a scriptural text not usually associated with the
Trinity. Mack enhances the relation between image
and text by leaving Christ's body largely uncolored,
allowing the paper and WiericxA-s finely incised lines
to describe the incarnate Son's sacrificial body.
The scriptural basis of these pictorial effects, or
rather, the attempt to base traditional iconography in Scripture, must be understood in terms of the contested
status of Trinitarian imagery following the promulgation
of the Tridentine decrees (accepted in the Spanish
Netherlands by a series of provincial and diocesan
synods convened between 1565 and 1574), but also in
terms of Lutheran dogmatics, based on the crucial
distinction between Law and Gospel, first promulgated
in the Second Book of Isaiah.
According to Luther,
Scripture initially turns from teaching the Law to
prophesying the Gospel, the consoling ministry of
the Word, in Isaiah 40-43, where the promised redemption
of sin through the sacrifice of Christ is especially
set forth in the Servant Song of Isaiah 42. Although
The Trinity answers to Catholic concerns about the
orthodoxy of images, it can yet be seen to operate
across confessional lines, accommodating both Catholic
and Lutheran readings, appealing to various constituencies
in Antwerp and Nuremberg. The print's ecumenical character,
undoubtedly apparent to Mack in Lutheran Nuremberg,
would have made it especially valuable to Van Luyck,
who could thereby market his commodity to a wider
audience. In turn, Mack's judicious coloring, while
not suppressing the print's potentially Catholic elements,
heightens its Lutheran complexion, presenting Christ
as the instrument of divine love expressed in the
Godhead's giving of itself to restore and justify
humankind.
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