Attributed to Miguel Cabrera (Antequera de Oaxaca, Mexico, 1715 / 1720 - Mexico, 1768)"The Holy Trinity"Oil on canvas. Relined.96 x 70 cm. Without hesitation we can affirm that this painting is by Miguel Cabrera, being very similar, with slight variations in position of persons and color of clothing, to the oval painting of the Trinity in the Soumaya Museum, Carlos Slim Foundation, Mexico City; it also resembles the painting in the parish of Tlaxcala in San Luis de Potosí, Mexico, (today Museo del Virreinato), which is of rectangular format and by the same artist. These are two similar examples among others. The Holy Trinity is difficult to explain theologically. But Cabrera knew how to express the complexity of the dogma very well in his art, as he demonstrates deep theological knowledge in his religious painting.In 1715, Pope Benedict XIV prohibited images of the Holy Trinity, because such portrayals denied the immaterial essence of the Holy Spirit. Miguel Cabrera got around this by using the same facial anatomy but making a distinction between the colors and the symbolic references on their chests.On the right is God the Father, in a white tunic, a symbol of revelation, with the sun on his chest, the manifest light of God, and a golden scepter as a symbol of power. Jesus Christ, on the left, is dressed in blue, a color that reveals his divine identity: his sacrifice as savior is recalled by the stigmata on his hands and feet, as well as the Mystical Lamb. The red and pink of the vestments in the center, for the Holy Spirit, represent the Pentecost and the flame of living love.The three figures are on plinths decorated with cherubs and their radiance indicates their divine nature at the same time.The painter captured the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit with skill and mastery in this composition. The luminosity of the colors, the movement within the painting and the sweetness of their faces are remarkable. Cabrera is considered to be the greatest exponent of 18th-century Viceroyalty painting in New Spain, with an output that the Dallas Museum of Art defines as ‘legendary: more than 309 works from his large studio have been documented’.Miguel Mateo Maldonado y Cabrera was born on 27 February 1695 in Antequera, present-day Oaxaca, Mexico, a fact known from the painter's will from 1768.He was the son of unknown parents and the godson of a mulatto couple. He moved to Mexico City in 1719, where he began his artistic training in the studio of Juan Correa in the capital of the Viceroyalty.Cabrera painted altarpieces in the Jesuit church of Tepotzotlán, in the State of Mexico, in the church of Santa Prisca in Taxco, Guerrero, and in the cathedrals of Mexico City and Puebla.Cabrera was not only a painter, but was also involved in the attempt to found an academy of arts in 1753, and in 1756 he established himself as an intellectual, not only as an artist, as he published an account of the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in 1756 entitled ‘Maravilla americana y conjunto de raras maravillas observadas con la dirección de las reglas del arte de la pintura’, an account of the image of the Virgin Guadalupe published by the printing press of the Jesuit college of San Ildefonso.In addition to easel painting, his output includes altarpiece designs, large-format paintings, as well as small ones on copper and nun's shields. Cabrera produced figures of remarkable beauty in his religious painting, a beauty understood through the ideological assumptions of the worship of the period. It is refined art with well-arranged chromatic richness, sustained by great compositional work and, no less important, subtle and expressive drawing.Of all the painters of that period, Cabrera was the one with the greatest personality; the conventional treatment of his figures undoubtedly formed the basis of his style of painting, as he placed in his paintings models that were not ideal, but who were people he knew and dealt with, such as when he incorporated portraits of donors or the so-called ‘prelates’ in some paintings. He had the need to observe directly and copy from nature. He was appointed chamber painter to Archbishop Manuel Rubio y Salinas, who commissioned him to study and paint the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, an image made from "ayate" - a material made from local plants. Cabrera's version was sent to Pope Benedict XIV, from whom he received the highest recognition as a painter of Guadalupe. Outstanding portraits he painted include the one of Sor JuanaInés de la Cruz, kept in the National Museum of History, and the portrait of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, located in the Museum of Colonial Art in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico.He was also a painter for the Society of Jesus, producing numerous artworks for their churches.In 1753 he was appointed president for life of the Academy of San Carlos.His work is kept in many churches and convents in Mexico. Two of his images of the Virgin of Guadalupe are in the Vatican Museum. Another, painted in 1756 for the church of San Francisco Javier, is in the Museo Nacional del Virreinato.The Museum of Art in Dallas has a Saint Gertrude the Great by Miguel Cabrera and another painting of Saint Gertrude, also by Cabrera and dated 1768, is part of the collection of the José Luis Bello y Zetina Museum in Puebla, Mexico.Also of note is an important series of Caste paintings from 1763 in the collection of the Museo de América in Madrid. These depict families, father, mother and child of the various castes and social strata, in everyday situations.
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