Two Trinities

A copy of Murillo’s Two Trinities hangs in the vestibule of the Church of the Gesu. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was one of the leading artists in seventeenth-century Spain. Murillo tended to avoid scenes of martyrdom, he specialised rather in tender Holy Families, lovable infant saints, and graceful Madonnas.

 
His depiction of Two Trinities derives from sixteenth-century engravings made for Jesuit devotional books by the Flemish Wierix brothers. These images, designed to appeal to a broad lay audience, stressed the humble labors of the Holy Family, and glorified Saint Joseph, carpenter, protector of the Virgin and earthly father of Christ. As God the Father, the dove of the Holy Spirit and Christ form the Celestial Trinity, so Mary, Joseph and Jesus mirror them on earth in a Terrestrial Trinity.

In this painting, probably commissioned as an altarpiece, Joseph - the only character directly to address us - holds the flowering rod, sign of God's will that he become Mary's husband. The Christ Child is raised on a dressed stone, both a compositional device to set him at the apex of a triangle in the center of the painting and symbolic: "thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion...a precious corner stone, a sure foundation" (Isaiah 28:16). As the clouds part to reveal the divine light, their shadows temper the bold red and ultramarine blue, the apricots, pinks, gold and white of the highlights to a wonderful overall harmony, a haze of grey, sky-blue and saffron.

This original painting hangs in the National Gallery in London. When this painting for the Milwaukee church was made, it required special permission from Queen Victoria. This permission was granted to an artist named Gauthier, a Belgian, who did the work for his friend, the Rev. Peter DeSmet, a Jesuit missionary among the Native Americans. The canvas, 9 by 12 feet, was brought to Milwaukee by Fr. DeSmet in the winter of 1870. It then hung over the main altar of St. Gall's from 1870 until 1894. It has been restored two times, in the summer of 1936 and again in March 1994.