Pesellino: making the vital visible

Great art doesn’t just delight, it educates. Andrew Davison recalls learning deep wisdom from a child as he reviews the Pesellino exhibition at the National Gallery, London.

Andrew Davison

Andrew works at the intersection of theology, science and philosophy. He is Canon and Regius Professor of Divinity at Christ Church, Oxford.

A painted altarpiece depicts a crucified Christ surrounded by followes, angels and soldiers.

The Pistoia Santa Trinita Altarpiece, Francesco Pesellino.

The National Gallery

My favourite idol features prominently in National Gallery’s new exhibition of paintings by Francesco Pesellino (1422–1457). I say that by way of provocation: I don’t really think it’s an idol, but that is how it was described to me – by a ten-year-old – in one of the best conversations I’ve ever had as a teacher.

That was fifteen years ago. I was in the gallery to give a theological tour, as part of a Confirmation class for Westminster Abbey. Half an hour in, we came to Pesellino’s Pistoia Altarpiece. It’s a glorious painting, but I was unconvinced by what it sets out to do, with its dead Christ within a portrayal of the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is about the nature of God, as love and life, and there’s no death there.

Not that I mean to single out Pesellino for criticism. He isn’t the only painter to represent God that way. Massacio’s version is one of the most significant works of the early Florentine Renaissance, resurrecting linear perspective in painting. Just down the road from the National Gallery, at the Courtauld Institute, there’s a similar painting of the Trinity by Botticelli. They’re all magnificent, I just think that if you’re going to try to depict God, the emphasis should be on life.

Standing before Pesellino’s painting fifteen years ago, with those misgivings in mind, I asked the dozen or so kids in the Confirmation class what might be wrong with what the painter as trying to do. One child replied instantly: ‘Please Father, it is an idol.’ Dread rose within me. This child was an Arab Christian. Had he, I wondered, grown up in a culture that treated religious art as idolatrous? Had I offended his conscience continuously for the past half hour, with painting after painting? Best to find out. ‘Have the other paintings been idols?’, I asked. ‘No’, he replied. ‘Why not? Why is this one bad?’ His reply came without pause: ‘Because there’s God the Father in it.’ This was getting interesting. ‘So’, I asked, ‘it’s OK to show Jesus, like the other paintings we’ve seen today, but not God the Father?’ ‘Yes’, was his firm opinion.

These are deep waters, and this was a thoughtful child. To this day, the Orthodox Churches generally forbid depicting of God the Father in icons. Then came one of the most glorious moments of my life as a teacher. ‘Why’s that?’, I asked. ‘Why can we paint Jesus, but not the Father?’ The boy stood silent for some moments. ‘Because’, he said, the cogs of his mind clearly turning, ‘because… because God has made an image of himself in Jesus… You could see Jesus… so you can paint him.’ This was no pre-packaged answer. He was not recycling anything he’d been told before. He was recapitulating the arguments of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (at Nicaea, in AD 787) in real time.

The eight century was a turbulent time when it comes to religious images. They were supressed in the Byzantine Empire from around AD 730, with a firm condemnation in AD 754. Twenty-three years later, at Nicaea, the church reversed the ban. The decisive argument was formulated by St John of Damascus (AD 675 or 676 – 749): ‘When the Invisible One becomes visible to flesh, you may then draw a likeness of His form.’ It’s the same position as our young theologian in the National Gallery had got to on his own.

In this way, Christian art rest on Christmas: on the Incarnation, on God’s coming-into-the-flesh. Heir to the Judaic prohibition of ‘graven images’ Christianity – or most of it – made its peace with depicting holy things, and art in churches, because of Christmas, where we see ‘God made visible’ in Jesus.

In the mystery of the Word made flesh

the light of your glory has shone anew upon our minds

that seeing here God made visible,

we may be caught up in love for God whom we cannot see.

Those are words from the central acclamation of Christmas (the Eucharistic preface) at Midnight Mass (and at Holy Communion for the rest of Christmastide). ‘Seeing here God made visible’.

The events of Christmas form one of the two poles of Christian art. Some delightful examples feature in the Pesellino exhibition: a virgin and child and an Annunciation. The other supremely worthy subject for Christian art is the crucifixion and all that surrounds it. As I have noted, in the current exhibition the crucifixion features in his Trinity altarpiece. God’s humanity is most clearly witnessed at the beginning of Christ’s life, and at the end.

In the intervening years, I have mellowed towards Pesellino’s painting, and that way of depicting something about God. Painting the eternal reality of God is impossible, but in Jesus we see what we need to see. There is no death in God, but the crucifixion is what God’s life looks like when it is made flesh in a world full of evil. The crucifixion shows God’s embrace of human life to the furthest extremes of suffering and degradation. It shows the life of God overcoming death. We can hold onto what the crucifixion offers in a painting like this one, while remembering that the Resurrection underlines the priority of God’s life over death. One painting can’t say everything.

Those fifteen years ago, I was aware that I’d been in a remarkable exchange, one that I would not forget. As I found across my time as a curate, children ask the best theological questions. That might be reason to go to see the Pesellino exhibition with a child. Alongside the paintings I have mentioned already, there are also two gloriously child-friendly panels, each showing multiple events from the life of King David. They offer a sort of fifteenth century comic strip, except that the events are fused into one long scene. Pesellino was a master at painting animals. Magnifying glasses are provided to help you search them out.

Pesellino: A Renaissance Master Revealed, The National Gallery, London, until 19 March.

Article

Awe and wonder

Culture

Film & TV

11 March 2025

5 min read

Why you need more cathedrals in your life

A TV tour of the ancient landmarks showcases their relevance to today.

Pat Allerton

Pat is vicar of St Peter’s Notting Hill and author of A Pocketful of Hope.

A vicar stands arms in front of himself, behind him is a cathedral

Channel 5.

There’s a moment I love every time I drive down to visit my mum. It comes on the A30 heading south towards Salisbury. You come over a brow and round a bend and then there she is, the 123m tall spire of Salisbury Cathedral. Regal, majestic, aloof, dominant. So many words to describe this glorious building. And I remember remarking to my brother one time, who doesn’t share my Christian faith, as he sat in the passenger seat, how amazing it is that without saying a word, the architecture itself bears witness to the reality of another world, another Kingdom. Proclaiming a message to that city. A lighthouse of sorts, continually pointing people to God as they sail on rough and secular seas.

For me personally, it was a real joy to get to visit six of our most stunning Cathedrals for a two-part series I presented for Channel 5 called, Britain’s Great Cathedrals – To the Glory of God. It comes at a critical moment as cathedrals now face potential financial ruin due to the Government’s recent decisions concerning National Insurance and the Listed Places of Worship scheme. Thrilling I hear you say, but before you scroll on by, suffice it to say that these developments could see the closure of many of our nation’s most magnificent landmarks! This would be a disaster, not just for the soul of the church, but also for the soul of the country. I want to suggest three reasons for that being the case, which are their unrivalled ability to inspire (pardon the pun), inform and include.

The truth is, whether you’re a person of faith or none whatsoever, you can’t help but be inspired when you see or enter one of these buildings. Whether it’s the glorious facade of Lincoln, the expansive nave of Canterbury, or the sheer strength and grandeur of Durham, these edifices were built to amaze and generate awe. Why else would I say ‘wow’ almost 900 times in just two episodes?! Take it from me, you run out of adjectives pretty quickly. But that’s precisely the point. They were built to lift the mind and soul from the drudgery of what was all too often a pretty grim existence and place their thoughts firmly on higher things. Whether they make it all the way to Heaven itself, or go no further than a vaulted ceiling, the primary mission to inspire is achieved. Would I rather someone is impacted more by the Spirit behind the stone, or the grace behind the glass, of course I would. But would I take the needle of someone’s thoughts and worldview being moved even a fraction, as they perhaps ponder, ‘what moved these people to build this? What did a society and culture believe to prioritise and shape such real estate?’, then yes, I’d take that in a heartbeat. There’s nothing in all of Britain to rival our cathedrals to inspire.

But it’s not just that. It’s the simple truth that so much of our heritage and history is tied up in these monuments of stone and glass. Artistry developed, architectural techniques advanced, and our cathedrals were undeniably and unavoidably central to the life of the nation. As such, their ability and value to inform a people about who they are and where they come from is unmatched. People might not like it. They may even push against it. But for good or ill, it’s what made us who we are. And look a little closer, and you quickly discover that most of the values that we so embrace and espouse today herald directly from the faith proclaimed in and by these architectural marvels. Secularism has done its best to sever such values from their source, but as the historian Tom Holland has demonstrated, seeking to do so is about as logical as trying to claim that the apples on the branch of a tree have nothing to do with its roots. The facts simply don’t bear it out. And what greater facts can a city proclaim than its skyline, so often dominated by ecclesial geometry. Our cathedrals are filled with the history not just of people, but the ideas that moved them and shaped Western Civilisation. Long may they continue to inform.

One of the biggest building projects we read of in the Old Testament is Noah’s building of the ark. A behemoth of a boat, big enough to house and include all. And it’s that final idea of inclusion that perhaps speaks most powerfully today. We hear it used a lot, but all too often it’s become a synonym for an approach that has no shape, no constitution or actual covenant of belonging. What draws me to the faith behind these edifices is precisely that even as the invitation goes out into all the earth, just as Noah’s did to all creation, we only enter on God’s terms. He’s the One who calls us in and gets to name and define us all. Whilst this may at first sound narrow, it is in fact the way to liberation. Joined by common bonds and values, held together by the One to whom these buildings point. The sheer vastness of cathedrals conveys there’s room indeed for all, just as the ark had space for its guests as it made its way to a new world. The invitation of our cathedrals, both in form and opening hours, goes out into all the world declaring, ‘Come! Whoever is thirsty, let them come; and whoever wishes, let them take the free gift of the water of life.’ For the message in stone for even hearts of stone is that in Christ, all can be included.

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