Hans Holbein the Younger: Painter at the Court of Henry VIII
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Hans Holbein the Younger: Painter at the Court of Henry VIII Details
From Publishers Weekly Ambitious and versatile, Holbein brought his Northern Renaissance skill to the English monarchy, as made evident in this sumptuous visual tour of the court of Henry VIII. The opulent portraits are rendered with lavish color, subtle modeling and precise detail. In several cases, the finished paintings are paired with their preliminary drawings, clear proof of Holbein’s virtuoso draftsmanship. Despite the scarcity of primary sources to document the artist’s professional dealings, it is clear that Holbein’s shrewd touch did not stop with the canvas. He survived the Reformation’s opposition to religious subject matter through the patronage of such intellectuals as Erasmus and Thomas More. After More’s execution, Holbein nimbly moved on, producing exquisite likenesses of the chancellor’s pallid, beady-eyed successor, a bejeweled Jane Seymour, the tiny red-cheeked heir, and, of course, the slab-jowled monarch. Scholar Buck provides edifying explications of Holbein’s technique and use of symbolism, but the dogged insistence on substantiating the dates that paintings were presented at court and other minutiae best left to footnotes nearly manages to make a riveting, turbulent period appear plodding and uneventful. Still, with in-depth examinations of the portraits, capsule biographies and definitions of historical terms, this is an unusual reference source for scholars of portraiture and the Tudor dynasty. 180 illustrations, 60 in color Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Read more About the Author Jochen Sander is Chief Curator at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt. Stephanie Buck has been lecturing at the Freie Universität Berlin since 1994, where she specializes in late Gothic and Renaissance art. Among her publications is a monograph on Hans Holbein the Younger, published in 1999. Read more
Reviews
This is a beautiful book. While waiting for it to arrive I downloaded other books form Amazon about this painter. They are just sad, incorrect background and incorrect titles of the works are only a couple of the issues. It's a great coffee table book