A photographic triptych is a style used in modern commercial artwork. The photographs are arranged with a plain border between them. The work often consists separate images that are variants on a theme, or may be one larger image split into three.
Often, a triptych is used to tell a type of story
The triptych form rose from early Christian art, and was a popular standard format for altar paintings from the Middle Ages onwards. Its range was from the eastern Byzantine churches to the Celtic churches in the west. At one point, triptychs were often used for private devotional use, along with other relics such as icons.
Renaissance painters such as Hans Memling and Hieronymus Bosch used the form and even sculptors used it.
From the Gothic period onward, altarpieces in churches and cathedrals were often in triptych form. One such cathedral with an altarpiece triptych is Llandaff Cathedral. The Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, Belgium, contains two examples by Rubens.
This is a triptych art I found while looking into reconnaissance art paintings that were in triptych form. While three separates paintings, to me the link is of a queen and her child in the royal court, on either side of the court are her subjects, maybe a servant or another royal to one side and a guard and priest on the other. To me the link is the royal court, you can see the same structure in each section of the triptych and everyone there is dressed rather elegantly for what is expected of the reconnaissance period.
To me, the link of the triptych above is the telling of heaven, earth and hell. In the beginning of the painting, there’s the familiar scene of the Garden of Eden. The first painting tells three scenes, God creates Adam and Eve, Eve is tempted by the serpent to eat the forbidden fruit, and both Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden.
The second panele is a telling of earth and humanity, in the centre of the painting is a cart loaded with hay, surrounded by people greedily grasping for every bit that they can get their hands on.I believe that the hay is a type of metaphor, something for viewers to see a difference of people looking for their own gain.
The crowd has representations for all types of people: aristocrats, merchants, monks, civilians, the elderly and the young, mothers busy taking care of their children. They are fighting with each other, conspiring, cheating on each other, bending down just to get some hay for themselves.
And the third panel is of hell. I feel that the artist was telling a story of mankind and how greedy we can all be, how some mistakes or things we do can lead to our judgement in hell.
As time went on, artworks of triptychs became more common in digital photographs, photography. Triptych collages help to tell a story, whether it be about the artist themselves or an object or person of their choice.
In this image, the triptych is a telling of a dog getting an outdoor shower before being cleaned up and dried off, it is a simple telling of a dog being washed, but it makes the story clear enough for anyone to view it and see it for what it is.
The triptych here has a link of a birthday party, it has a beginning, middle and an ending for the cake itself. The girl is happy to see the cake and blow out candles before she messily eats it, I feel that from her expression that maybe she ate a little bit more than she’d liked.
I liked this triptych collage because it takes on a different look than a typical portrait: it’s posed and styled to show something about the model without showing her face. It shows her fashion sense, maybe her favourite colours, it shows her hair colour and how nice her nails are, the nails hint at a liking of yellow roses, and the final image hints at a telephone, so maybe she is young and enjoys simple things such as fashion, getting her nails done and talking to friends over the telephone. I like this image because the main focus isn’t obvious compared to the others I shared in this thread, it’s more subtle and a different take on it.
