Arthur B. Chamberlain

“ There is nothing of the dignity or the supernatural beauty which so often irradiate the inanimate countenance shortly after life has passed away; but, regarded as a work of art, the picture is in the highest sense one of great beauty by reason of the mastery of its technical achievement, the knowledge it displays of the human body, its absolute truth to nature, and the harmony of its colouring. ”

“ In this scene there is little of the energy and even violence of the earlier pictures; for the action has come to an end with the death of Christ, and Holbein has depicted it as though a hush had fallen over the multitude of people who, with uplifted faces, are gazing on their handiwork. Their attitudes are quiet and restrained, the vehemence of passion has subsided, and the presence of death has quelled all anger and clamour. ”

“ THE GREYSTOKE PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS The Greystoke picture [406] has every appearance of being a work from Holbein’s own brush. The masterly modelling, the fine and subtle draughtsmanship, the wonderful expression of the mouth and the still keen and brilliant eyes, are too good and too true to life to be the work of a mere copyist. The cheeks are more sunken and the face more heavily lined than in the portraits of 1523. ”

“ The Rich Man, in a gloomy chamber with a window with heavy double bars, sits surrounded by his money-chests and bags, a heap of gold spread before him on the table. He springs up in a fury of anger at the sight of Death, perched on a stool and filling a large bowl with money from the heap. It is as bitter to him to lose his wealth as his life. Equally furious is the feeling displayed by the Merchant, upon whom Death pounces, seizing him by both hair and cloak, at the moment when he is examining and checking his bales and barrels of merchandise which have just been unshipped on the quay. ”

“ The wonderful truth with which he has realised them, however, the fine rich colour, and the luminous painting of the flesh tones, combine to make it one of his greatest works, in the study and appreciation of which the want of physical beauty in the principal sitter and the severe plainness of the costumes are overlooked and forgotten. Though only six years later than the Solothurn Madonna and the portrait at the Hague, Elsbeth Holbein has already lost all appearance of youth, and the cares of life have left heavy traces behind them. ”

“ It is a pen drawing heightened with white on a dark grey ground, and represents the Madonna seated on a stone bench over which her cloak is spread, supporting the Infant Christ in his first attempts to walk. The Child, with one arm and leg uplifted, is laughing with delight, and the attitude of the Virgin, with head bent down, and her long hair blown on one side as though by a breeze, is one of great beauty. ”

“ All the details, more particularly the elaborate ornaments of the woman’s dress, are drawn with a truth and delicacy that already falls but little short of the brilliance of his technique in such a masterpiece of portraiture as the Georg Gisze in Berlin, or the Jane Seymour in Vienna. The colour, though rich and strongly contrasted, is harmonious and delicate in the general effect it produces. The whole work, indeed, gives the impression that it is from the hand of an artist who is already sure of his methods. ”

“ Allowing for some years’ difference in age, this may well, I think, be the same person as she who appears in the Augsburg picture. But, whether it be the mother of the great painter or no, it is certainly a study which shows Hans Holbein the Elder to have been possessed in some degree of those very qualities in which his son afterwards stood supreme. There is something of the same sympathetic power of seeing, and the same completeness of recording what has been seen, without pedantries and without makeshifts, all that gives to any given human face its charm and its interest.... ”

“ Death helps him in ploughing the last furrow, and flogs forward the worn-out team of thin and miserable horses. At the end of the field with its long ploughed lines a delightful landscape lies stretched, with the houses of a village nestling among the trees, the church tower rising from the hillside on one of the lower spurs of the Swiss mountains, the whole peaceful scene flooded with the light of the setting sun. This background is, perhaps, the most beautiful of all, and yet its lovely effect is produced with the simplest means. ”

“ The background is a very picturesque landscape with high mountains, on one of which rises a castle, and the western sun, filling the sky with light, is just sinking behind their crests. Next comes the Duke with his retinue, of whom a poor woman with her child begs alms, and as he turns his head away in refusal, Death, crowned with a wreath of vine-leaves, reaches forward as though to pluck his ermine cape from his shoulders. ”

“ The same heavily-lidded eyes, prominent nose, well-chiselled mouth with its full lips, double chin, and slope of the shoulders, occur both in this drawing and in the Solothurn altar-piece, and are even more strongly marked in the later portrait-group, though in this earlier study the features as yet bear few traces of the trials and experiences of life, but still retain much of their youthful bloom and freshness, and gain a certain beauty from the happy smile which lights them up. ”

“ I can scarcely express in words, Margaret Roper, thou ornament of thine England, what hearty delight I experienced when the painter Holbein (Olpeinus) presented to my view 342your whole family in such a successful delineation, that I could scarcely have seen you better had I been myself near you. Constantly do I desire that once more, before my goal is reached, it may be granted me to see this dear family circle, to whom I owe the best part of my outward prosperity, and of my fame, whatever they may be, and would owe them rather than to any other mortal. ”

“ The face is round and full, and of the German type, and in its features by no means one of ideal loveliness, but the happy and tender smile which hovers on the lips, and the deep maternal love which shines in the eyes, give to it a very real and arresting beauty of its own. The plump, round-headed Child is a delightful study from real life. ”

“ Opposite to him his father, crowned, in princely robes, an aged man, with long silvery beard, sits in his chair of state, placed in front of heavy tapestry hangings, freely offering himself to the torture. Holbein has very skilfully marked the contrast between the abject fear of the culprit, who appears about to scream aloud, and the old man, who makes ready to meet the sharp pain with dignified restraint, and only displays his feelings in the way in which he grips the arms of his throne. ”

“ To Holbein, who by no means regarded himself as a portrait-painter only, but to whom all decorative work, however large or however small, was equally an occasion for giving of the best that was in him, the ornamentation of a clock face would in no ways appear to be work in any way disgraceful or beneath him; nor is there the slightest evidence to show that he ran away from Basel like a thief in the night. Throughout his life, indeed, his methods were orderly, and such as became a citizen and guildsman of his adopted town. ”

“ Though not strikingly handsome, she has youth and good looks in her favour. The two portraits are placed against one continuous architectural background, seen in rather strong perspective. In the centre an elaborate gilt frieze of Renaissance ornamentation is supported by short pillars of red marble, and on either side larger columns, also decorated with gilded carving, form the supports of two arches. Through these the blue sky is seen, against which the wife’s head stands out in strong colour contrast. ”

“ The model is stepping forward from the side of a plain stone pillar, a heavy stone held in either hand, the weight of which brings the muscles of the arms into prominence. Her hair falls in long curls down her back, the head is bent towards the right shoulder, and the eyes are cast downwards, and the lips parted. Both in movement and in the suggestion of the rounded softness of the figure the drawing is admirable, and at the same time displays an Italian influence, recalling similar studies by Raphael and Leonardo. Dr. Ganz places it among the work of Holbein’s second English period. ”

“ There is nowhere a line too much or too little. The space to be filled is so small that these details are minute, yet Holbein’s line is so broad, and his hand so unerring, that nothing is confused or meaningless. The spacing of each cut is masterly, so that they produce the effect of a great design set forth on some spacious canvas. ”

“ Beneath their feet are many trampled bodies and shattered weapons. The composition is a very fine one, and the draughtsmanship of extraordinary vigour and vitality. One can almost hear the cries and yells, and the clash of the arms, so completely has Holbein realised the scene, and so vividly set it down on paper with rapid but unerring pencil. [361]
It is impossible to give here even a list of his many drawings, of which so large a number are in the Basel Gallery. ”

“ The concluding design shows the Beggar, lame and blind, and almost nude, seated among the straw and rubbish in front of some rich man’s house, his hands raised as though imploring Death to come for him; but he is the only one from whom Death keeps aloof. This block, as already noted, is so badly cut that it is not easy to say with certainty whether Holbein was the designer of it. In the “Young Wife” of the 1562 edition, Death is dancing as he leads her away in tears, while they are preceded by a gaily dressed gallant who plays a guitar. ”

“ The boy in the picture, who appears to be six or seven years old, may well have been the model for the Infant Christ in the Solothurn Madonna. The group has been painted with a speed and spontaneity which is not usual in Holbein’s portraits, with their minute finish and careful elaboration of details. This unwonted vigour of handling, however, gives to it a freedom and a largeness which make it unique among the varied manifestations of his genius. It has many of the qualities of a brilliant sketch, in which both likeness and character have been set down with direct and masterly power. ”

“ The pale, delicate flesh tints are continued in the body of the Infant Christ and in the hands of his mother, the two heads forming a lovely chord of colour in perfect harmony with the reddish marble and grey stone of the niche against which they are set. The Virgin’s dress is dark blue, which has turned almost green with the passing of time, with under-sleeves of gold, in the painting of which actual gold has been used, as also in the crown, and in Anna Meyer’s head-dress and other ornamental parts of the picture. ”

“ The Child in her arms is kicking out his legs, and raises one chubby fist in the air, looking over his mother’s arm with a cross expression, as though angry at having been lifted from the ground. The armed, kneeling knight appears to be the same donor as in the other drawing, but is turned more towards the spectator, with hands uplifted as he gazes in adoration. This exceptionally beautiful and masterly design is said to have been reproduced on a considerably larger scale for a window of the church of St. Theodore in Little Basel. ”

“ This is followed by the Drunkard, a scene with men and women in the middle of a disorderly carouse, among whom Death stalks, and, pulling back the head of one of them, a gross and bloated old man, pours wine down his throat from a tankard. The Fool dances over the rough ground, one finger in his mouth, and a long bladder grasped in the other hand, as though about to strike at Death, who, falling into his humour, dances by his side to the music of the bagpipes he is playing. ”

“ He passes along the street in his robes, bearing the sacrament to the bedside of some dying man, preceded by Death, who acts as his sacristan, with bell and lantern, his hour-glass tucked under his arm. Very different is Death’s treatment of the Mendicant Friar, whom he seizes roughly by the hood, just as he is about to enter his monastery with well-filled box and begging-bag. There is bitter satire, too, in the picture of the Nun, kneeling in front of the altar in her cell, but her head turned behind her towards the young gallant who sits on the edge of her bed and plays his lute. ”

“ There were also altar-panels by Schongauer in the Isenheim Monastery itself, where Holbein appears to have been working when he painted the “Fountain of Life.” In addition to this direct influence, others, both Flemish and Italian, are to be traced in it, but well fused, so that the whole composition is unforced and natural, and contains passages of much beauty. There is delicacy and warmth in the flesh tints, and the sincerity of feeling which pervades all the principal figures is one of its chief charms. ”

“ The agony of Christ is well expressed, and considerable knowledge is displayed in the drawing of the body. The bright garments of the executioners form a striking though harsh contrast to the pale flesh tints of Christ and the stone wall of the cell, through the doorway of which on the right Pilate is gazing at his victim. Though by no means faultless, this picture has qualities, both of expression and of execution, which are remarkable when the age of the painter is remembered, qualities 42which already give indications, however faint, of the coming greatness of the master. ”

“ Ganz, a work of Holbein’s last residence in Basel, probably made just before his return to England in 1532. In the foreground of the fight two men are at close quarters, one of whom, with sword whirling over his head, grips the hair of his opponent, who is striking at his throat with a long dagger. On either side of them two soldiers are forcing a space round them with enormous pikes, while behind is a great crowd of shouting, panting, and struggling men, whose lances, dashed in with a few hasty strokes, stand out against the sky with an extraordinary effect both of number and movement. ”

“ The light comes from some small aperture low down at the foot of the tomb, and falls on the soles of the feet, and illuminates the lower side of each prominent feature of the body, such as the under parts of the chin, the white swollen lips of the open mouth, the nose, and the eyebrows, leaving other portions in shadow, and thus intensifying the feeling of horror which the picture at first produces. It shows that Holbein, at the age of twenty-four, had attained a complete mastery of technical expression, for it is painful in the completeness of its realism. ”