Hans Holbein the younger E-Book

Jeanette Zwingenberger

• Herausgeber: Parkstone International
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 146

Beschreibung

Hans Holbein the younger

Leseprobe

© 2021 Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA

© 2021 Parkstone Press International, New York, USA

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All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world. Unless otherwise specified, copyright on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers, artists, heirs or estates. Despite intensive research, it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case, we would appreciate notification.

ISBN: 978-1-64699-975-0

THE SHADOW OF DEATH

IN THE WORK OF

HANS HOLBEIN

THE YOUNGER

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Holbein’s Life

THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMBASSADORS

Two protagonists

Three different points of view

From two-dimensional canvas to three-dimensional effect

POSSIBLE ARTISTIC SOURCES

The portrait of Sir Thomas More’s family

The portrait of Henry VIII

JUXTAPOSITION OF IMAGE AND TEXT

The studiolo picture

Holbein’s self-portraits

A STILL LIFE OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS

The artist as a disseminator of knowledge

THE ANAMORPHOSIS OF THE SKULL

The death’s-head as an object of meditation

The knowing mirror ofPrudentia

Vanitas: an ambiguous element of the picture

The skull anamorphosis: a stumbling block

THE SIGNIFICANT SHADOW

SECULAR AND SPIRITUAL TIME IN THE AMBASSADORS

The “Ambassadors” and Their Attributes

The Shadow of the Future

SIR THOMAS MORE’S UTOPIA

THE DANCE OF DEATH

Christ in the Tomb

Adam and Eve

THE INTELLECTUALISM OF HOLBEIN, THE ARTIST

Historical temporality and the presentness of the creative act

The signature of death

DRAWINGS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

NOTES

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Mary Wotton, Lady Guildford, 1527. Oil on wood, 80 x 65 cm. Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Mary Wotton, Lady Guildford, 1527. Black and coloured chalks, 55.2 x 38.5 cm. Public collection, Department of Engravings, Art Museum, Basel

Hans Holbein the Younger,Design for Stained Glass with Two Unicorns, c. 1522/23. Pen and wash aquarelled, 41.9 x 31.5 cm. Public collection, Department of Engravings, Art Museum, Basel

INTRODUCTION

Hans Holbein the Younger is one of the greatest portrait painters of the 16th century. A keen observer of his era, Holbein painted not only his contemporaries in Basle and various German merchants, but also the most distinguished humanists of his day: Sir Thomas More, Erasmus, the astronomer Nicolas Kratzer, Archbishop William Warham, as well as the international nobility; subsequently he became the court painter of Henry VIII and his sundry wives. The breadth of his activities allows one to describe him as a genuine European artist.

What is striking about Holbein’s true-to-life pictures is their miniature-like precision and the concomitant monumentality of their proportions. Holbein’s wide range of pursuits included not only painting, drawing, book illustration and designing stained-glass windows, jewellery and luxury objets, but also painting fanciful trompe l’oeil murals and architecture.

But Holbein undermines the apparently objective representation of reality in his pictures with minute details, while intermingling various temporal dimensions and availing himself of diverse media, including images and text. As a result, an ambiguity of form and content characterizes his works, which might be termed “pictorial documents” of prevailing 16th-century ideas and of the innumerable notables he portrays.

Our methodological point of departure will be Holbein’s picture of The Ambassadors, which will serve as a key to the artist’s world. The anamorphosis in this picture will be taken as the crux of an interpretation involving the deliberate play on the coding and decoding of the image. The two different ways of looking at the anamorphosis, i.e. in distorted or corrected form, are not just perceptual phenomena, but integral parts of a new conception of visual art. This conception is marked by dissociation from the level of mere illustration and by profound reflection on the artist’s subjects. The world of the picture becomes a play on words and forms which, once decoded and articulated, yields a moral message, which, however, cannot be taken as the only significance of the work.

Hans Holbein the Younger,Bat. Black and coloured chalks, 16.8 x 28.1 cm. Art Museum, Basel

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Jean de France, Duke of Berry. Black and colored chalks, 39.6 x 27.5 cm. Public collection, Department of Engravings, Art Museum, Basel

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Jeanne de Bologne, Duchess of Berry. Black and colored chalks, 39.6 x 27.5 cm. Public collection, Department of Engravings, Art Museum, Basel

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Derich Born, 1533. Wood, 60.3 x 45.1 cm. Royal collection, Windsor Castle

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of the Artist’s Wife and Two Sons, 1528. 77 x 64 cm. Public collection, Art Museum, Basel

Holbein’s Life

Hans Holbein the Younger was born in Augsburg in 1497/98. Hans and his older brother Ambrosius (c. 1493/94–c. 1519) first studied with their father, the renowned Southern German painter Hans Holbein the Elder (c. 1465–1524). In 1515 the Holbein brothers were both working in the studio of Hans Herbst in Basle, Switzerland. That was the year in which the two of them executed the marginal drawings for a manuscript by Erasmus entitled The Praise of Folie. In 1517/18 they collaborated with their father in Lucerne on a large-scale mural for the mayor Jacob von Hertenstein. The title of master painter was conferred on Holbein in 1519, at which point he joined the zum Himmel (to the sky) painters’ guild. That same year he married the widowed Elisabeth Binzenstock, who was to bear him two sons.

Holbein became a citizen of Basle in 1520 and painted the mural decorations of the new council chamber as well as the facades of the house Zum Tanz in Basle during the 1520s. It was also at that time that he first made contact with local publishers: Johannes Froben, Adam Petri, Thomas Wolff, Andreas Cratander, Valentinus Curio and Johann Bebel. From 1523 to 1526 Holbein fashioned a famous cycle of woodcuts known as the Dance of Death, which, however, were first printed, by Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel in Lyon in 1538, under the title Les Simulachres et Historiées faces de la mort, autant élégamment portraites, que artificiellement imaginées. Also published in Lyon that year were his so-called Icones, 92 woodcuts Holbein had designed between 1524 and 1526, while still in Basle, based on subjects drawn from the Old Testament.

In 1524 Holbein, who had probably already visited Italy, made his first trip to France (Bourges)—as evidenced by his drawings of the praings statues of Jean de Berry and Jeanne de Boulogne in Bourges. Two years later he journeyed via Antwerp to England, where he resided at the home of Sir Thomas More. On his return to Basle in 1528, Holbein was faced with a devastating situation: the iconoclasts had begun destroying pictures. Yet in 1529 he received another commission: to finish painting the Great Council Chamber of the town hall. In 1532 Holbein went back to London, where in 1536 he became the official court painter of Henry VIII, who was to send him on a number of journeys to the Continent in the years to come. In 1543, at the height of his career, Holbein died of the plague in London.

Hans Holbein the Younger,The Greek Philosophers Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and Pythagoras Beside King Solomon, 1523. Metal cut, Public collection, Department of Engravings, Art Museum, Basel

Erasmus of Rotterdam,The Praise of Folie, 1515. J. Froben, fol. Q3v, Marginal drawing, pen. Public collection, Department of Engravings, Art Museum, Basel

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of the Artist’s Wife and Two Sons, 1528. 77 x 64 cm. Public collection, Art Museum, Basel

Hans Holbein the Younger,Magdalena Offenburg as Venus, 1526. Oil on wood, 34.5 x 26 cm. Public collection, Art Museum, Basel

Copy of Hans Holbein the Younger, Model of the house Zum Tanz (dance hall), Reconstruction. Public collection, Department of Engravings, Art Museum, Basel

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach, 1519. Wood, 28.5 x 27.5 cm. Public collection, Department of Engravings, Art Museum, Basel

Hans Holbein the Younger,Solothurn Madonna, 1522. Oid on wood, 140.5 x 102 cm. Art Museum, Solothurn

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Anne of Cleves, 1539. Wood, 65 x 48 cm. Louvre, Paris

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Henry VIII, 1536–1537. Oak, 28 x 20 cm. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Henry VIII (Detail)

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Jane Seymour, 1536–1537. Oak, 26.3 x 18.7 cm. Museum of Historie Art, Painting Gallery, Vienna

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, 1538. Oil on wood, 179 x 82.5 cm. National Gallery, London

Hans Holbein the Younger.Portrait of Edward, Prince of Wales, 1539. Oak, 57 x 44 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Hans Holbein the Younger,Portrait of Edward, Prince of Wales, 1543. Diam. 32.4 cm. Metropolian Museum of Art, New York

THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMBASSADORS

Jean de Dinteville (1504–55), who commissioned the work, went to London in February 1533 as France’s ambassador and stayed for nine months. In a letter dated May 23 to his brother François de Dinteville, the Bishop of Auxerre, Jean talks about an unofficial visit paid by his friend Georges de Selve (1509–42), the Bishop of Lavaur: “Monsignor de Lavaur did me the honour of paying me a visit, which delighted me. But it is not absolutely necessary for the Grand Master [Montmorency] to find out about that.”[1]

Far from being kept secret, however, the meeting of the two friends in London was to be immortalized in one of the most celebrated portraits of all time.[2]

The year of the picture, moreover, coincides with a turning point in the history of England: the divorce of Henry VIII from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, which gave rise to the schism between the Anglican and the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, the Cosmati pavement in the picture is borrowed from the mosaic in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, which sets the double portrait in the context of the ensuing religious conflict, while the indication of the exact date renders the painted subjets witnesses to this critical moment in history.

Two protagonists

The two protagonists are Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve. Against this highly complex historical backgroud, Jean de Dinteville, while sojourning in England, commissioned Holbein to portray the two friends. Holbein, who had spent another four years in Basle, had returned to a wholly altered situation in London: Sir Thomas More, who had been his host and procured a number of portrait commissions for him during his first stay in London, had fallen out of favour with the royal court because of his opposition to Henry VIII’s divorce. Holbein, on the other hand, festively decorated the Steelyard for the procession attending Anne Boleyn’s coronation on 31 May 1533.[3] In view of Holbein’s allegiance to the Crown, Erasmus wrote a letter that same year complaining that Holbein had disappointed his friends in London.[4]

There is no documentation whatsoever regarding the association between Holbein and Jean de Dinteville. However, the middle-man may well have been Nicolas Bourbon, the court poet, an exile from France. Bourbon had lived in the circles of Margaret of Navarre before being invited to the English court by Anne Boleyn, his patroness. Bourbon’s book of poetry Nugae includes a poem on the art of Holbein[5] as well as an epigram on the Seigneur de Polisy: “In gratiam Ioan. Dintauilli Polysi, cum Christianis. Regis orator in Britannia ageret... Temporibus cede, et uentis ne flantibus obsta. In domo clariss. Uirir D. Ioan. Dintauillae, quae uulgo etiam, orator appellatur.”[6] The picture of The Ambassadors was kept in the Dinteville family palace in the French town of Polisy (Troyes), but the palace was completely redesigned in 1544; consequently, there is no concrete evidence as to the painting’s intended destination, nor has any document yet been found that would permit reconstruction of the painting’s immediate surroundings. The format as well as the life-sized scale of the picture, however, predetermine the manner in which it should be hanged.

Hans Holbein the Younger,The Ambassadors, 1533. Details (portraits of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve)

Hans Holbein the Younger,The Ambassadors, 1533. Oak, 207 x 209.5 cm. National Gallery, London

Hans Holbein the Younger,The Ambassadors (Detail)

Three different points of view

The perspective in The Ambassadors presents three different viewpoints, passing virtually seamlessly from a distant view to close-up and diagonal view. The pictorial reality alone makes it possible for these mutually exclusive perspectives to coexist. The overall effect of the picture is dominated by the imposing life-sized appearance of the two men, whose posture and gaze confront the viewer en face. The rich details of the still life elements and the crucifix above Jean de Dinteville in the upper left-hand corner need to be viewed close up. The anamorphosis, on the other hand, straightens out when the viewer relinquishes his head-on position and stands next to the picture at an angle,[7] to the right of Georges de Selve as it were, his head at the level of the crucifix.[8] Thus, the viewer becomes, in a manner of speaking, the third protagonist. The vantage point from which the viewer regards the skull is in the extension of a diagonal axis generated by the anamorphosis, to the right of the picture.

From two-dimensional canvas to three-dimensional effect

To examine the two perspectives—frontal and lateral—let us begin with a description of the geometrical construction of the linear perspective. However, the idea is not to simulate the artist’s reality and reconstruct the space and objects depicted, i.e. “what the artist was able to see,”[9] but to gain a better understanding of the painting and its structure.

Specifically, the two-dimensionality of the surface of this picture, particularly that of the anamorphosis, is deliberately contrasted with the three-dimensionality of the space depicted. The illusion of depth is created by foreshortening the square pattern on the floor to a rhombus. The starting point of the middle perspective verticals is the apex of that rhombus in the foreground, which combines with the outermost lines of the rhombus to foreshorten the perspective. The vanishing point is on the celestial globe, whose equator coincides with the horizon line.[10]

But the horizon line is below eye-level. The foreshortening of the two horizontal wooden shelves in the middle of the picture yields a view from above.[11] Furthermore, the oriental rug on the upper shelf has the effect of dislocating the instruments and objects on top of it from the ambient spatial perspective: the astronomical instruments, ranging from the foldout/collapsible torquetum to the octagonal sundial, are interlocked in a quasi-cubistic manner and seem to drift away from the ambient space created by the centralized perspective. They are isolated from the picture as a whole, constituting an entirely separate pictorial level.

Another field of vision is engendered by the lines of the prayer book on the lower shelf, which intersect with the rosette of the lute. A separate complex of angles is formed by the apex of the set square, the wooden handle of the globe and the pegbox of the lute.

But how is the anamorphosis incorporated into the picture? Two sources of light serve to underscore the separation of the different pictorial areas.[12] The shadow of Jean de Dinteville on the floor and the shadows of the lute and recorders are cast by light shining frontally from above on the right-hand side. The shadow cast by the anamorphosis, however, suggests a second light source, situated at an acute angle to the surface of the picture in the extension of the axis of the anamorphosis to the right of the picture. The shadows place the two men and the objects in the illusory pictorial space, which is lent a level of reality by the plasticity created by the lighting. By dint of its elliptical shape, the anamorphosis to the fore appears to be suspended weightlessly. Only the shadow it casts anchors it as an object in space.[13] Its shadow detaches it from the surface and assigns it a background function. The upshot is a dialectic between the object and its shadow. The shadow places the intangible shape of the anamorphosis as a tangible object in three-dimensional space, thus giving it a temporal and spatial dimension.

Hans Holbein the Younger,The Ambassadors (Detail)

Hans Holbein the Younger,The Ambassadors (Detail)

Hans Holbein the Younger,The Ambassadors (Detail)

Hans Holbein the Younger,The Ambassadors (Detail)

Hans Holbein the Younger,The Ambassadors (Detail)

Hans Holbein the Younger,The Ambassadors (Detail)

POSSIBLE ARTISTIC SOURCES

The Ambassadors might possibly have been modelled on an altarpiece by Antonio and Piero Pollaiolo dating from 1467–8 in the mortuary Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal in the church of San Miniato al Monte in Florence. The altarpiece is interesting not only on account of the life-sized frontal representation (172 x 179 cm) of the Three Patron Saints,[14] but also on account of the decorative Cosmati work in the chapel.[15]

Another Italian model might be Bramante’s double portrait of Heracleitus and Democritus