King's Painter

Moyle Franny Moyle

Description

From a distinguished art historian, a dramatic reappraisal of Renaissance master Hans Holbein, whose art shaped politics and immortalized the Tudors Hans Holbein the Younger is chiefly celebrated for his beautiful and precisely realized portraiture, which includes representations of Henry VIII, his advisors Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, his wives Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, and an array of the Tudor lords and ladies encountered during the course of two sojourns in England. But beyond these familiar images, which have come to define our perception of the age, Holbein was a multifaceted genius: a humanist, satirist, and political propagandist, and a deft man whose work was rich in layers of symbolism and allusion. In The King's Painter, biographer Franny Moyle traces and analyzes the life and work of an extraordinary artist against the backdrop of an era of political turbulence and cultural transformation, to which his art offers a subtle and endlessly refracting mirror. It is a work of serious scholarship written for a wide audience.

Sujets

• Renaissance art

Informations

• Publié par: ABRAMS BOOKS
• Date de parution: 05 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781647005214
• Langue: English

Extrait

Copyright 2021 Franny Moyle
Cover 2021 Abrams
This edition published in 2021 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
First published in the UK in 2021 by Head of Zeus
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021934975
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4953-7
eISBN: 978-1-64700-521-4
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I lost two dear friends shortly after finishing this book, in the dark December of 2020. One, Stephanie Theobald, a fine artist, was in the midst of reading the manuscript for me when she died. The other, gallerist, lithographer and collector Pierre Chave, was a lifelong friend who helped shape my tastes and encouraged my enthusiasms. Both were an inspiration to me. It seems only appropriate that this book should be dedicated to them, though I am profoundly sad they they will never see this message of love and gratitude.
CONTENTS
Preface
CHAPTER ONE: Anne
CHAPTER TWO: Holbain
CHAPTER THREE: Young Hans
CHAPTER FOUR: Erasmus
CHAPTER FIVE: Death
CHAPTER SIX: Elsbeth
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Dance
CHAPTER EIGHT: Meyer s Madonna
CHAPTER NINE: Thomas
CHAPTER TEN: Nicolaus
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Easterlings
CHAPTER TWELVE: The Ambassadors
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Anna Bolina Regina
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The King s Painter
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Christina
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Edward
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Earl of Essex
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Nonsuch
Acknowledgements
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
PREFACE
When Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, more than two hundred years after Holbein s death, he understood a biographer to be A writer of lives; a relator not of the history of nations, but of the actions of particular persons. Though I am reluctant to challenge Johnson on many things, in this instance it is necessary to point out how very limiting this definition is. A life and the times in which it is lived are inexorably linked. In Holbein s case, the history of nations could not be more relevant to his life. The political and religious turmoil of his era had such a profound effect on the course of Holbein s career that it would be impossible to offer an account of one without the other. After all, this is a man who lived through arguably the greatest upheaval in European history - the moment when Catholicism, a religion that had defined Europe and dictated the daily lives and material environment of generations - suddenly found itself at war with radical new thinking in the form of what would become called Protestantism.
If that sounds rather dry, the consequences on the ground were dramatic. The Reformation that spread across Northern Europe would chase a young Holbein from his hometown of Basel in Switzerland, the sound of the iconoclast mob ringing in his ears, to seek fame and fortune in a London he hoped, like Dick Whittington, would be paved with gold. In a case that could be seen as leaping from the frying pan straight into the fire, he found himself then at the heart of the Tudor court just at the moment that Henry VIII hurled his own country into a period of religious and political uncertainty, and adopted the mantle of the cruel tyrant that would ultimately define his reign, and threaten Holbein s own personal safety.
What is truly astonishing about viewing history through Holbein s story is his proximity to events. This is not a man watching from the sidelines, but a painter who, through a mixture of luck and determination, observed the most extraordinary events of his century up close. Here was someone whose profession, reputation and ambition secured him access to the most powerful men and women of his times. A name that continues to resonate today is Erasmus, a man whose pen was on fire, whose intellect was sought by kings and popes and whom Holbein embodied in a series of images that have described the scholar ever since. But the legacy of Holbein s portraits of the Dutch writer pale when compared to his record of the sixteenth-century English court. Take the most recognized names of the Henrician moment and Holbein likely had a direct and proximate relationship with them: Henry VIII, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Jane Seymour, and Anne of Cleves are but a few. His portraits of these people have become definitive. It is almost impossible to imagine Henry VIII and his entourage through anyone else s eyes but Holbein s.
Holbein s repertoire is wide. Beyond the monarch and his immediate circle, he captured some of the greatest poets in England such as Thomas Wyatt; persecuted martyrs such as Bishop Fisher; the women making new strides for their sex such as Margaret Roper; and the foreign ambassadors who strode the corridors of Henry s palaces. Through his work we see a host of courtiers and their families as they rise and fall in favour, and we glimpse the power of merchants, the discoveries of astronomers, and the rise of lawyers. Holbein gives us a snapshot not just of Tudor royalty but of the socio-economic web woven around it. He immerses us in a lost world. In short, his work describes the Tudor period like no other, and we continue to see it through his eyes.
The question I am most often asked when I mention I am working on a biography is whether there are armfuls of letters, or a diary to draw on. While researching Holbein s life my inevitable reply was very much in the negative. Anyone taking on Holbein as a subject has to deal with the fact that primary written material relating to the artist is sparse, to say the least. Contemporary records are restricted to administrative documents held in the archives in Augsburg where he was born, in Basel where he lived as a young man, and in England where he worked for the last decade of his life. He is mentioned in other people s letters, and in poetry. His earliest biographer, Carel van Mander, scooped up as much anecdote as he could. But if Holbein ever put pen to paper other than to draw - and surely he did - his correspondence has long been lost.
The story of his life then is inevitably informed by a degree of detective work. At the heart of this are his paintings, drawings, prints and designs. Where written records are lacking, this visual material that Holbein has left adds up to a chronicle as vivid as any journal. Through his work for the citizens of Basel, his references to the wonders seen in the palaces of the Loire belonging to Francis I and of course his output in London, one plots his trajectory across sixteenth-century Europe. The allusions in his paintings and printed work to the debates of his time speak not only of the vivacious intellectual climate in which he lived, but of his own part in the cultural conversation of his time. His fascination with the science of his era is expressed through his own experiments in perspective and illusion.
The humanity expressed in the faces of those he observes tells us of a man capable of deep feeling. His enchantment with his young wife is clear in his drawing of her; two delightful miniatures of young boys made at the end of his life reveal the sentiments of a man who had fathered at least six children; the haughty demeanour of certain courtiers reminds us that Holbein, even at his most diplomatic, sometimes left his own comment for posterity.
Despite living during a time of plague, poverty and war, Holbein also lived in a moment when satirical humour was alive and kicking. Comedy, wit, irony and parody are tools at his disposal. His Dance of Death is not only a reminder of human frailty and mortality, but also a comedic and empathetic commentary on the social injustices of his time.
Of course the meticulous research of scholars over the last 150 years has contributed hugely to piecing together details of Holbein s career and domestic life, and as the footnotes, bibliography and acknowledgements in this book indicate I have relied greatly and with much gratitude on such work. But the fact remains that considered speculation not only forms part of Holbein scholarship more broadly, but also of this particular biography.
That Holbein and enigma go hand in hand is in fact quite appropriate. Mystery is a key part of Holbein s appeal. The elusive meaning of The Ambassadors , his world-famous depiction of two French diplomats, is a huge part of the painting s enduring popularity. Working in the era of discovery and wonder, the ability of the artist to layer his work with meaning that could be unpacked like a puzzle was all part of his brilliance. Holbein was known as the most cunning painter of his day. On the one hand this is a term that alluded to his ability as an illusionist, whose grasp of mathematical perspective was so formidable, and whose observation and draftsmanship so exceptional, he could create persuasive, lifelike work. But the term also refers to the intellectual conceits he conjured to delight his viewers - The Ambassadors being very much a case in point.
In this book, I have attempted to resurrect Holbein s world. Much of the material environment that he occupied exists. The winding streets of Augsburg s craft district are not so different from when Holbein ran down them as a child. Basel s colourful medieval houses perched along a fast-flowing Rhine are also remarkably preserved, and the routes Holbein would have walked from his home to those of various clients and publishing houses are easily retraced.
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