The Unsettling Secrets Hidden In Holbein's Tudor Portraits (Waldemar Januszczak) | Perspective

so this must go away, there must be and this would be the last one, who do you think it is? I'll give you a hint: he is a famous English king, so who is he? Come on, don't Google who this stern, bony monarch is, you're smart people now. There, those who come here to the National Portrait Gallery are immediately clear about it. I know what it gives away, of course, is the nose, the way it is flattened. There is something that walruses see about it, but some of you didn't quite understand it and why. You didn't immediately recognize that this is Henry the Eighth, it's because this is not the Henry that we all have here in our imagination, the Henry who had six wives who stood up to the Pope who destroyed the monasteries, that Henry doesn't look like that, he looked like that, now, that's how he is. what do you call Henry the eighth look at the way he stands like a Tudor gunslinger and it's okay to corral the powerful torso the sheer width of the man this is a king who could change history that is the Henry that lives here in our thoughts, Henry the Terrible, the greatest king of Christendom, and is the creation of a particularly important artist, an artist who I would argue not only recorded British history, but actually changed it.

He was a funny little man, a German from Bavaria, the genius who looked like a farmer called Johannes or Hance halt boy, this is a great gift to the world, the iconic image of Henry VIII that everyone recognizes and Holbein didn't stop there, how Do we know what Sir Thomas Moore is, that conscience? The Phille man of all the seasons who faced Henry looked like thanks to Holbein, how do we know what Henry's unfortunate queens looked like thanks to Holbein and how do we know what the man Thomas Cromwell Henry went to to destroy the monasteries really looked like? by Holbein Holbein not only described Tudor England, he gave it an extraordinarily active presence, made it feel real, and by making Tudor England immortal, he changed history because one piece of history that we can imagine so clearly will always prevail over all the other pieces of history that we know.

I can't imagine at all why we're so obsessed with Henry VIII and his damn wives because of Holbein. Holbein was from here Berg in Bavaria, where he was born in 1497. His father was a painter and a very good one. Holbein the elder. He painted religious paintings, this is one of his, he also designed stained glass windows so that his son, trained by his father, would have absorbed all these deep Catholic moods from his birth here in the Augsburg Museum, they have one of the best paintings of Holbein the elder. It is the basilica of st. Paul what is the name of an altarpiece that tells you the story of Paul here, his head is being cut off by order of Emperor Nero apparently the head bounced three times when it hit the ground causing three miraculous fountains to gush out of the ground, but what I really want show you this scene on the left because that old man with a messy beard who is actually Hall behind the eldest and below him are his two sons, Ambrosius the eldest, with curly hair next to him, handyman Holbein, future painter of Henry I .8th then the father trains the son to be a painter when the son is 17 he comes here to Basel in modern Switzerland Basel was famous for its printing press, the book capital of Europe, and that must have been what brought the young Holbein here. that I was looking for. worked as a book illustrator Basil's best printer was a man called your hand for Oban throbbin was both an editor and a scholar, so he was adventurous and knowledgeable and Holbein soon began working for him Froman produced many important books, but it is particularly known for publishing the work of the famous Dutch critic Erasmus of Rotterdam and yes, Holbein painted Erasmus too wrapped up for winter in his studio busy writing.

Erasmus actually came to Basel specifically to work with Froman and it was frou bin' who published the best edition of Erasmus' most famous book. work a hilarious parody of the modern world called in praise of madness almost everyone gets kicked in praise of madness young women gamers but Erasmus is especially harsh on clergy, priests, bishops and friars Holbein was only 17 when he got a copy of his praise of fawni and in the margins he drew all these funny little drawings it's like something a naughty schoolboy would draw in a famous book this guy is walking down the road when he sees a beautiful woman and he's so busy looking at her that he gets into a basket of eggs oh and this is a monk who has taken the vow of poverty so he can only touch money with this strange money playing instrument, however with the other hand he can touch whatever he wants as you can see, it's impressively rude, how can a 17 year old know so much about sexual greed, human stupidity?

The Holbein who emerges here is an instinctive subversive, a Mickey catcher who sides with Erasmus to mock the world around him, so he's good. The question is where did it all go? Did Holbein suppress all this precocious knowledge of the dark workings of men or does it sometimes peek out and reveal itself when you are as talented as this and have so much speed and inventiveness in your fingers? people quickly realize so Holbein was soon busy what he was really good at was religious painting this is the dead Christ that the young Holbein painted for the base of an altarpiece in Basel it is a brilliant piece of religious realism but also I could do Catholic fluffiness like this gorgeous Virgin and Child standing in a niche in Darmstadt, look at the brilliant foreshortening of Jesus' hand.

Leonardo himself would have been proud of that, so everything was going great. His religious art was in demand. The book trade kept him busy when. Martin Luther and his Protestant Reformation arrived, suddenly everything changed in a Lutheran world, there was no longer much demand for the Catholic Virgin standing in golden niches, the printing industry also began to falter, who should publish, the Protestants or the Catholics, with the publishing world trapped? In this dangerous crossfire and the exhaustion of the Religious Commission, Holbein needed to find work elsewhere and that is where Erasmus came in handy. Erasmus had written in praise of madness in England, had spent several years there teaching at Oxford and Cambridge, and in 1526 Holbein armed with a letter of introduction from Erasmus set out to look for work in England when he arrived here in England, he is little more than 20 years old, so he is still a young artist, but he already has a lot of experience in the unexpected arrival of hoes to Henry VIII's England. that the only thing he didn't have much experience in was painting

portraits

in Basel.

Holbein had been known mainly as a religious artist, he painted one or two

portraits

, yes, and they were really good, but they were exceptions in his output in England, although he had never had much appetite for the Virgin and for Christ that sort of thing was better leave them in the hands of the Italians in England the most esteemed art form that seemed most in tune with the national psyche was the portrait the stairs of England were full of ancestors showing their lineages to be successful in England Holbein needed to change course Erasmus had introduced him to one of the most influential men at court, writer, statesman theologian and, as it later transpired, Catholic martyr, Sir Thomas More Holbein appears to have spent most of his first year in England.

England lived in Moore's home in Chelsea. He was working on this ambitious group portrait of some of Moore's jurors and his large family. Unfortunately, this is a copy and not a very good one. The original was destroyed by fire in the 18th century. All that remains. of the real Holbein there is a stack of these amazingly vivid drawings, and there is something else, of course, this whole great Bynes portrait of Moore that they have here in the Frick Collection in New York. More was the man who confronted Henry, who refused. He accepted the King as the new head of the church, so Henry beheaded him.

Now I grew up believing that Sir Thomas Moore was a man of great principles. That is why the Catholic Church made him a saint in 1935, but more recently, a different Thomas More. has been proposed to us in today's stories, he is often presented as a demented religious fanatic, a cruel murderer of heretics, that is what modern novelists and playwrights have been making of Moore, but it is not what Holbein makes of He and Holbein were there. I know it's a cliché. and it has been said a thousand times but you really feel that one of the most determined presences of British art is before you, just look at the details, the way the velvet has been painted or its perfectly observed skin tones without saying Vinson five or 'The shadow of the clock, this sense of topicality is new not only in British art but anywhere.

These first full-length English portraits of Bynes make Doctor Who all of us. The TARDIS sings us back in time to meet a

tudor

-style cast that feels surprisingly present right in front of us. Bynes' entire first visit to England lasted only two years before fate conspired to bring him to Basel. He was busy enough and that was not the problem, but as a citizen of Basel he could only leave the city for a short time or he lost his citizenship, so in 1528 he had to return. It was probably now that he painted his wife and children, he had to leave them behind when he went to England and, as you can see, he has turned them into a sacred family, hasn't he? the long-suffering Madonna and her children fearing what was coming Basel in 1528 was not a good place to be if you are a painter or Catholic Holbein had seen the Protestant revolution come to Basel and it was one of the reasons he had gone to England, But during his absence everything had gotten much worse Basel officially became a Protestant city in 1529 to celebrate bands of rabid iconoclasts rampaging through the churches looking for the Virgin to trample and Christ to crush on February 9 15:29 a band of About 200 Angry Lutherans broke into the Basel Cathedral here and started attacking the art statues, the crucifixes, the entire wine paintings and they did not stop until all this superstitious idolatry when they saw it was destroyed.

There is no official record of Holbein's area religious views, it is not surprising that he held them. for himself, but he was born a Catholic in very Catholic Bavaria and my hunch, based on the odd visual clue here and there, is that he never completely crossed over to the Lutheran side, what is certain is that it was now difficult to get a job on the of the Econo clasts. Considering that in a world without images there was no longer a need for a painter, Holbein did not leave immediately, he had to worry about his wife and his children, but in 1532, after putting his affairs in order, he left Basel and left. again. for England and this time he would be working not only in royal circles but for the king himself and the water king that he was.

Holbein came to England because he was following the money like artists do away from Basel away from the iconoclasts he came here looking for prosperity and peace he found Henry VIII and he was here while Henry beheaded his wives he brutally confronted the Pope and forced him. His new religion is so damn lucky that he almost feels predestined. Holbein did not begin to work for the king as as soon as he returned to London, his first clients came from here. It's changed a little, of course, but in Tudor times this was a very important place for Holbein because where I am now was the center of a huge urban complex called the German Steel.

The steel depot was not a steel depot, it was a city within a city, a sort of German Hong Kong created by German merchants for the purposes of international trade. It had been here since 1320, getting bigger and bigger and the German merchants here. They did not pay tolls or customs, they were privileged foreigners and within this walled community they had warehouses, shops, offices, taverns, so this was a home from home for Holbein and when he returned to England in 1532, the wealthy German Steel merchants Yard. They were his first clients, this handsome young man who now lives in Windsor Castle, is Derek, born in Cologne, who supplied Henry VIII's court with military equipment for the army in Hull.

He joins time like today if you are looking for precision, quality and Voss spring loaded door Technic. you bought in German the paintings that Holbein made from the German shipyard merchants seemed to speak a different language from his other paintings in English it is as if part of that different mentality that had appeared in the madness of the company also appears here in this exceptionally beautiful His companion is the Joerg geese that emerge from Danzig, he is sitting in his office in the German shipyard surrounded by the supplies of his business, his pens, his documents, the box in which he keeps his money and all these details that Holbein has described so perfectly have other meanings, little secret messages that have been smuggled into the picture, note in particular the beautiful Venetian VARs with their fragile pink carnations, how skillfully Holbein has painted the changing reflections in the glass and how precariously the VAR balances on the edge of the table every time you see it. something on the edgeof a table in art always means the same thing it's not the precarious life, it's the same with the piggy bank how easily George Keisha's cash stash could fall and for the precarious VAR the beautiful reflections are all brilliant reminders of full pinion of The brevity of life, like reflections in glass, all of which can disappear in an instant, is a message that is always relevant, but it was particularly relevant in the changing and fractured England of Henry VIII.

Holbein obviously didn't know what he was allowing himself. In Henry VIII's England, if I had known, I would surely have turned around and returned home, you know, between the ages of 5 and 11 I used to walk this path almost every day. All my life we ​​lived there in Caversham in Redding and this was my path to school every day for six years and not once in that time did I consider the importance of this path. My school was down here, in the alley they still love to walk down. The school down here was a catholic primary school run by nuns called st.

Anne is an ordinary, pleasant and friendly school, next to a church. The church was also called St. Anne's and back then I didn't know what had really happened here in all of Bynes' time, but I know now. Anne's Caversham had a famous statue, it was called Our Lady of Caversham and she was said to have miraculous powers. The Shrine of Our Lady of Caversham was one of the most visited places in Tudor England. Pilgrims traveled hundreds of miles to pray to him. seeking help, one of them was the rightful Queen of England, Catherine of Aragon, who came here to Caversham on July 17 at 3:32 p.m. to pray for her husband Henry VIII.

It was the Queen's last plea to her God, begging Him to intervene and stop. Henry divorcing her and marrying Berlin, of course, didn't work out. Henry went ahead with the divorce from him, married a Berliner and became the supreme head of a new English church and a few years later took revenge on our Lady of Kavitha. On September 14 at 3:38 p.m., a gang of government agents arrived at St. Anne's and closed the famous shrine of Our Lady of Caversham was put into a cart and taken to London; The gold and silver with which the statue was covered was stripped and sent to the king and the wooden statue itself was burned by the man.

The one who organized all this destruction and wrote a quick note to his agents to congratulate them on a job well done was, of course, Cromwell. Thomas Cromwell. I bet you were wondering when we'd get to him now that he was in school. Cromwell was recognized. by all as a terrible man, the executioner of Henry VIII, the destroyer of the monasteries in recent years, although there has been a great reappraisal and the modern image of him, the one found today in plays and books, is the of a decent and brilliant man who is caught in a difficult situation, we are now told that Cromwell was one of the first public officials to channel power away from the monarchy and to invent the modern bureaucratic state.

Nowadays we're encouraged to see Thomas Cromwell as a good guy, but in this movie I'm not going to do that. that for two important reasons this is one of them: what Cromwell did to our Lady of Caversham, the ruin he inflicted on England's artistic past is unforgivable and the second reason not to whitewash Thomas Cromwell is this whole portrait of him by Bynes , just look at him, what a hard, charmless presence like pig eyes that blank expression Cromwell is surely the least attractive model in all of Hull's art Bynes this was painted at the beginning of Cromwell's campaign against the monasteries in 1533 shows it in his office with his quail and his documents inventing the modern bureaucratic state according to several conspiracy rumors that were circulating Cromwell actually used Holbein to spy on the German community in the steel yard this is how pol bine ended up working for the English Court it is true that Cromwell had spies everywhere but his Holbein really thanking him for his help in this grim portrait, was he really the good guy and was promised more here, really the bad guy, thankfully thanks to Holbein who was actually there, who the I knew both of them, who turned out to be the best portrait painter of his time here at the Frick Collection in New York we are in a perfect position to decide who is the good guy here and who is the bad guy we are Holbein in the matter it is surely quite obvious Holbein came in Officially in the king's service in 1535 he was paid £30 a year, which even in those days was not much and as this was Henry VIII's court problems immediately arose.

The helmet joins the first supporter in England. Sir Thomas More had risen to the rank of Lord Chancellor but refused to accept the king's new position as head of the church, so Henry had incorporated poor Holbein, he had no choice but to dissociate himself from his first supporter. He needed a new patron and at some point, probably with Cromwell's connivance, he managed to get on Anne Boleyn's good side, how did she do that with his art? Of course, there is a drawing in the Basel museum of a magnificent gold table fountain that he designed for the king's new wife.

She would have been covered in pearls and rubies and water would have gushed from her breasts. of the women below, so he was not just the court portraitist to earn his £30 a year Holbein and many court duties, he designed the royal jewels and the royal pendants, the royal cutlery and the royal daggers, even designed the royal fireplace. but his primary duty by which we all know him today was to invent a look for Henry VIII that was instantly recognizable. Henry needed portraits of himself to give to passing dignitaries, to the people he was trying to impress, so this was not a portrait as a record of what he really looked like this was a portrait as a propaganda weapon Holbein painted to Henry on several occasions Henry VIII, the extra-wide monarch ruler of everything he examines, are splendid, of course, jewel-like and perfect, but they are not exactly revealing. them, this is the most famous of them, Henry in the classic Henry pose and it is actually a caricature or preparatory drawing for a life-size mural that Holbein painted in Whitehall Palace.

There is a copy at Hampton Court. Henry and his parents welcome visitors. his private chamber imagine walking into a room and being confronted by this life-size lot the actual painting the Holbein mural was destroyed by fire in the 17th century only this drawing remains but one thing you do get from this is a sense of scale look how big the king is Holbein was no longer in the business of telling the truth, but invented a Henry VIII so imposing and broad that no one dared argue with him, it was a task accomplished Mount Seton style with constant repetition and enormous exaggerations of scale when the Whitehall mural was painted in 1537 and Berlin had received the treatment of Henry accused of false charges of incest, adultery and witchcraft, she was beheaded on 19 May 1536 while Cromwell watched from the wings the next day at Henry . she was engaged to one of her maids waiting for the pale and placid Jane Seymour Jane Seymour would actually be standing here in the Whitehall mural in the missing part, don't worry we know exactly what she looked like because Holbein also left us a portrait It is a beautiful thing and now it is hanging in Vienna, in a rural warehouse, a museum, but here too there is a distance, a tangible lack of humanity, a beautiful queen in beautiful clothes, it is like one of those precious pendants that Holbein designed for the court, a human.

Jewel Jane Seymour didn't last long, just a year after giving birth to the male heir Henry so desperately wanted, she tragically died from complications caused by the royal birth. The son she bore, the future Edward VI, was also painted by Holbein in this fiercely frontal image, he has Henry's cheeks, that's for sure, but his real face is

hidden

in the middle with the death of Jane Seymour, who was three Wives fewer and she was free to go after Henry, but running out of maids waiting at court, she expanded her search. for wife number four by assembling a new list of the best European princesses, poor Holbein became intimately involved in this quest when he was sent across the channel to paint portraits of Henry's potential brides so that the king could choose to welcome prettier for Holbein's hands. agency the first princess Christina of Denmark was only 16 years old when Henry approached her Christina was famous for her beauty, how beautiful you can see immediately from Hall Bynes is a magnificent full-length portrait of her, although she was very young .

Christina was already a widow and had been briefly married to the Duke of Mantua, which is why she dresses in black in Hall, an imposing image apparently Holbein only had one session with Christina in Brussels that lasted three hours, the drawing he produced in those three hours with lightning-quick fingers were all he needed to paint This is his best and most ambitious female portrait, it is not surprising that Henry immediately wanted to marry Christina of Denmark, who did not, but Christina was lucky to reject him, so Holbein was sent back across the channel to look for more potential brides and this time it was a German princess Anne of Cleves who needed to be examined, interestingly Anne of Cleves was painted on paper, presumably so that the painting could be more easily rolled up and carried away. back to England, and was painted with egg tempera which dries much faster than oil paints. this was done in haste it's a peculiar picture look how she stares at us you can't look natural looking like all of Bynes's art was starting to harden the king didn't care he liked Bynes's portrait of Anne so much that he married her , but the marriage was famously a disaster when Henry saw what she really looked like in person rather than in Bynes' full portrait, found her and this is his word, not mine, repulsive, so the marriage was never consummated and It was quickly annulled, but in At least Anne of Cleves came out of this alive, not everyone was so lucky.

Cromwell, who had sent Holbein to Europe to paint, blamed Anne for her mistake and a few weeks after the wedding he was accused of treason and beheaded. Holbein had been rescued in a Historical Nightmare: This is Catherine Howard, wife number five. She lasted a little over a year before Henry became madly jealous again and she too was beheaded. As for wife number six, Catherine Parr, there is no Holbein portrait of her, so we have no idea what she looked like. one generation comes and another generation comes and the earth remains forever Ecclesiastes all unites The most famous painting in the National Gallery in London is usually called ambassador, but that is only its modern name, it has only been called that since the late 19th century, in a more revealing way and A more precise name would be something like don't worry, it will be over soon.

The ambassadors chose the most friendly attendees. This is Jean d-no ovales, French ambassador to the court of Henry VIII and this is the Frenchman of him. friend George de Selve, bishop of the war of love, so these two commissioned the image and now they are standing there, leaning casually on this shelf full of all these symbols. Interestingly, very relevant, we know exactly how old they are because entire minds put it in the picture. Here, to Dan Travels Dagger, it says ETSU a-29, he is 29 in Latin and up here in this book in which the cell was leaning on t his a 25, he is 25, so an ambassador who is 29 years and a bishop who is 25, that is.

Young, isn't it? Many complex meanings have been proposed for the ambassador to try to understand the image has become a mini industry. Most of the mystery centers on this thing, the famous Holbein skull, which is so distorted that it can only be seen from the side from here and from quite high up why the skull is distorted is quite obvious, as I will show you in Wait a minute why it's in the picture. What he is doing here is more than obvious. It is completely unmissable. Yes, I'll show you. Oh, and you should also notice the crucifix

hidden

behind the curtain at the top because that was the most important symbol in the picture.

This is because of Hartman's vague stain, painted much later, but as you can see, he has another skull and this messy pile. of objects like the ambassador's is what is called a van it has images of vana throws that appeared in Northern Renaissance art in the 15th century this word Vanitas comes from here from the Bible and from the book of Ecclesiastes there is a wonderful passage dumi right at the beginning which says in Latin Vanitas vaneeta tome omnia Vanitas vanity of vanities everything is vanity, although this is not about vanity in the modern sense, all those television presenters looking in the mirror, this is biblical vanity where nothing lasts always, so what these images do is remind us. all the maximum uselessness of life and all these things here the flute the books that beautiful Japanese sword everything that is here today will be gone tomorrow because what awaits us all where we are heading is hereyou can see the same meaning in another famous photo in the National Gallery of the house of France in the house of France the young man is looking at a skull because that is his future no matter how young you are this is where he will end up so back in Holbein all these things here the things on the shelves are like the objects piled up on the stained leg earthly goodies wonderful while you are here useless when you are not the top shelf is full of scientific instruments for calculating the time sundials clocks celestial globes the sunrise the earth says Ecclesiastes do Mele and the sun descends and rushes the earth towards the place where it arises, so all these beautiful instruments to work in time, all this knowledge is basically useless, just a bunch of things, the bottom shelf, meanwhile , is full of earthly pleasures, things we enjoy, a lute to play music. this bag of floats over here look at a book of hymns by Martin Luther and this is where the image becomes very stealthy look at that loot again look very carefully see one of the ropes is broken and traditionally a broken rope is a symbol of discord some things went wrong what went wrong is Luther it is no coincidence that the Lutheran hymnal is directly below the lute with a broken string which is a deliberate piece of vanity as symbolism remember when this picture was painted in 1533 no one was still sure that the Protestant revolution was going to succeed, how could they have known it hadn't happened yet?

So what a lot of people would have assumed, particularly a Catholic bishop and the French Catholic ambassador is that Luther's revolt was just a flash in the pan, that's where the skull comes in, the skull right in the front of the picture is so big one that surpasses everything else compared to this big skull, this little bit of discord here. It's nothing, so why is this skull so distorted? Ah, that's where it gets smart. This is a boy bitten by a lizard by Caravaggio, so he is another young man and the lizard is biting him because the lizard in art is traditionally a symbol of old age and to amplify. that means that life is short very short Caravaggio also included this beautiful reflection in the VAR the reflection like youth itself will only last a moment is another vanity as a symbol so in the Holbein the skull is like the reflection can only be seen for a moment but only if you are here I think this must have been hanging in a room that you entered from the side from here and when you looked you saw the skull and that was a shock but then we saw the image from the front. the skull was no longer there, it disappeared because the skull death itself is just another vanity like the lutheran hymnal like the broken rope like the lives of the bishop and the ambassador death means nothing in the end it's just another illusion, everything that It really matters and I told you that the crucifix was important It is the eternal truth hidden behind the curtain in this great and astute masterpiece Holbein reminds us that the world of Henry VIII all that discord all that death is like everything else here today gone tomorrow Holbein himself didn't last long he died in 1543 of what they called the sweating sickness, the plague, he was 45 years old, he left some of the best portraits of the Renaissance, the Tudor cast was so vivid you could feel his breath on your cheek if Holbein I wouldn't have done it. was brought to England when he did, I'm absolutely sure we wouldn't be as obsessed with the Tudors as we are by making Henry the Eighth's age so damn tangible that Holbein imposed it on our thoughts forever, you know when he did.

I browse. this wonderful complete book that he drew when he was a child. I can't help but wonder how much more there could have been when you remember the resplendent realism of his religious art or the pathos and sadness he found in his own wife's face when you consider the torturous complexity of the ambassador, that's a lot of bean power, it wasn't only a race of Cleves in Berlin, also Thomas Moore, whose misfortune was to meet Henry the Terrible, to whom Hall joins misfortune.