This is followed by an essay by Jochen Sander focusing on the so-called "Darmstadt Madonna", which sheds light on the creation of this painting. Forty paintings are then shown, including full-page colour details. The book is completed by a who's who in the life and times of Hans Holbein. This explains 40 essential figures and 15 essential ideas/movements.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of the greatest painters,
By The Listener "chaszz" (Carmel, NY USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hans Holbein the Younger: Painter at the Court of Henry VIII (Hardcover)
Holbein is not only a masterful portraitist, but one of the greatest spatial designers in the history of Western painting. His pictures crackle with the tense space that he places his sitters in, and with the superb swirling architecture he creates in uniting their heads, their elaborate costumes and their taut backgrounds. Henry VIII was one of the cruelest kings in history, presiding over the invention of innumerable new torture devices and liking to burn his hapless victims to death not all at once but slowly and agonizingly over a period of many hours. Nonetheless as a powerful, popular king and the founder of English Protestantism, his life is rich with history and the fascination he wields is undeniable.
It is a stroke of luck for us that one of the two supreme Western portrait painters (Rembrandt is the other) happened to work for and portray this outsized, obsessed personality and the hard-nosed nobles of his court.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What's NOT to like about Holbein?,
By Tapestry (Texas) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Hans Holbein the Younger: Painter at the Court of Henry VIII (Hardcover)
Holbein brings early 16th century figures ALIVE. There's no such thing as a "ho hum Holbein". The man was a genius.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
