Arthur B. Chamberlain

“ Holbein’s drawings are matchless in the delicacy of their modelling, every little depression or prominence in the contours of the face being indicated with an exactitude and a simplicity of means unrivalled in work of such nature; and also for the way in which this delicacy of touch in handling the crayon, and subtlety and precision of the strengthening lines with brush or pencil, are combined with the wonderful vigour and sense of life with which each individual drawing is filled. ”

“ In his left hand he holds the long white wand of his office of Lord High Treasurer, and in his right the shorter gold baton, tipped with black, which he carried as hereditary Earl Marshal of England. Across the shoulders hangs the magnificent and richly-jewelled collar of the Order of the Garter with the pendant George, which is painted with all Holbein’s wonderful mastery in the clear rendering of minute ornament. The face, clean-shaven, and of a brown complexion, displays remarkable subtlety in the delineation of a proud and cruel nature. ”

“ The boisterous, even brutal, merriment of these fellow-countrymen of his, as they fling themselves into the pleasures of the dance with the utmost abandon, made an undoubted appeal to him, and in depicting them he expressed the joy of living which animates every movement with the utmost frankness and realism.
In this wide field of mural decoration and historical painting Holbein was the first and the greatest of those painters north of the Alps who came under the influence of the Italian revival of art. In him the Renaissance found very complete expression. ”

“ He sees similar traits in Holbein’s sacred paintings, and this insensibility he regards as not real, but feigned, springing from the intelligence rather than from the heart. Lovers of Holbein’s art, however, will find it difficult to follow him in his contention.
As a draughtsman pure and simple he stands among the very highest; in some of the qualities of his line he has never been surpassed or even equalled. In the Windsor and kindred drawings, preliminary studies for his portraits, his genius finds its most perfect expression, and these are, in many ways, the greatest of his works. ”

“ Her brown eyes look straight at the spectator. More than one writer, influenced no doubt by these stories of her lack of beauty, has described this portrait as the likeness of a heavy, expressionless, ill-favoured woman; but this is far from being the case. Without any pretensions to extraordinary good looks, the face is a pleasant one, and by no means as plain as it has been described; indeed, in many ways it compares favourably with that of Queen Jane Seymour. That it is a truthful representation is certain, for Holbein never failed in this respect. ”

“ This manipulative skill delights and attracts, but is forgotten when the portrait itself is examined. Without any apparent effort on the part of the painter, the sitter looks out from the panel just as he did in life, set down without flattery, with no harsh features softened, and with his character, seized with such penetrative and imaginative power by Holbein, fixed for ever with unerring truth and errorless draughtsmanship for succeeding generations to see and to admire. ”

“ The artist who possesses in a high degree any such power as that I have attempted to define, must of necessity have the requisite aptitude for success in either painting, architecture, or sculpture, or all three; since the power in question lies at the root of and is indispensable to the satisfactory practice of either or all. Architects will do well to look earnestly at such reliques as time has spared of the genius of Dürer, Da Vinci, and especially of Hans Holbein, since, so far as I know, they were the best makers of working drawings who ever lived. ”

“ Ruskin’s glowing description of the picture is well known, but it is so true and so eloquent that a sentence from it may be quoted:—
“Every accessory is perfect with a fine perfection; the carnations in the glass by his side; the ball of gold, chased with blue enamel, suspended on the wall; the books, the steelyard, the papers on the table, the seal ring with its quartered bearings—all intensely there, and there in beauty of which no one could have dreamed that even flowers or gold were capable, far less parchment or steel. ”

“ No great subtleties of light and shade are attempted, and his colour, beautiful and true as it is, helps but does not overpower his chief purpose—the complete realisation of the man both in body and soul. Holbein was a painter whose keenness of observation was extraordinary; he missed little or nothing, and saw much that lesser painters would have ignored. With his smooth, fusing methods of painting he reached to most marvellously delicate and 318accurate modelling of form, which in its expressiveness is beyond all words. ”

“ Holbein’s genius shows us Henry’s ministers and the lords and ladies who surrounded him, just as they were in life, without any attempt at flattery, but with every feature set down with unfaltering truth, and, above all, with a grasp of character which the portrait drawings of no other great master of his period show in the same degree. ”

“ The handling is both brilliant and delicate in all the accessories, in the fine modelling of the flesh, and in the wonderful draughtsmanship of the right hand grasping the glove. As a likeness of a living man and as an expression of the most intimate traits of his character, it holds its own with any piece of portraiture in the world, and is, indeed, complete in every respect, displaying the finest taste in conception combined with consummate skill and unerring accuracy in execution, and most harmonious colour. ”

“ The portrait of Cheseman is a half-length, facing the spectator, the head and eyes turned to the left. He wears a purplish red silk doublet, and a black cloak trimmed with fur, and the customary black cap. On his left hand, which is gloved, he carries a hooded hawk, with a bell on its claw, and with the other hand strokes its feathers. He is clean-shaven, and his long hair, which is beginning to turn grey, covers his ears. ”

“ There is a 317striking contrast between the rapidity and brilliance of the draughtsmanship of the preliminary studies for his portraits and the patient, concentrated, minute, and delicate brush-work of the finished portraits themselves. In all his completed work he spared himself no pains in the painting of the accessories and details, though in none of it, brilliant and absolutely truthful as it is, is there any sense of mere display, any boastful attempt to show the world how clever he was. ”

“ In the Meyer and the Solothurn Madonnas there is an air of divine tranquillity, and a loftiness and purity in the expression of spiritual beauty, which are combined in the happiest and most exquisite way with remarkable truth to nature, and vividness of accurate and sympathetic portraiture in the figures both of the Virgin and the Divine Child, and those, in the one case, of the kneeling donor and his family, and, in the other, of the attendant saints. ”

“ This effect of absolute truth of portraiture and revelation of character, the one due to the wonderful delicacy, subtlety, and expressiveness of his line, and the other to his sympathetic insight, is obtained by what appear to be the simplest and most straightforward methods. There is a dignity and reticence about the portraits which is admirable. Without thought of self, he occupies himself entirely with the truth as he sees it, and with his desire to realise it as completely as possible; no brilliance of technical skill mars the self-restraint with which he approaches his sitter. ”

“ Sadly damaged as the cartoon is, a mere fragment of the first conception of a great masterpiece, it nevertheless remains a remarkable and precious work of art, doubly valuable in that it not only shows us Holbein’s methods of work, but is also the only record from his own hand we possess to-day in this country of the most important and celebrated painting he produced while in England. The whole composition is drawn in with the point of the brush, in the manner, as Mr. S. Arthur Strong points out, at once broad and minute, of which Holbein seems to have been the solitary master. ”

“ The modelling is masterly, and is obtained by the simplest means; but the sketch, simple as it appears to be, produces a wonderful effect of perfect truth to life. Here is the King exactly as he was, as none other but Holbein could have drawn him. He has 100given not only an absolutely faithful rendering of the face itself, but has laid bare much of the complex character which lurked behind it, and the drawing must always remain both one of the artist’s very finest portrait-studies and also a living document of the utmost value in the history of Tudor England. ”

“ THE ACCESSORIES OF THE PICTURE The picture, which in point of size and in the elaboration of its many details is the most important work by Holbein remaining in England, is a brilliant example of the painter’s technical abilities, though as a composition it is less successful than certain other less ambitious portraits from his brush. ”

“ But every change of shade is felt, every rich and rubied line of petal followed, every subdued gleam in the soft blue of the enamel and bending of the gold touched with a hand whose patience of regard creates rather than paints. The jewel itself was not so precious as the rays of enduring light which form it, beneath that errorless hand. The man himself what he was—not more ”

“ Nichols, “there are abundant examples in Holbein’s work of his fondness for architectural details of a Renaissance type.... An Italian architect would scarcely have dealt so freely with the just proportions of the classic capital upon which his design was founded. And I am inclined to think that there was only one artist in England at that time who combined the fertility of invention and the graceful mastery of detail shown in these capitals with the boldness and freedom with which the classic model is treated.” ”

“ The whole panel is painted with the utmost simplicity and directness, and yet is stamped with real grandeur of style in every delicate stroke of the brush. The modelling of the flesh is rendered with extraordinary delicacy, while the tints are unusually transparent, and a faint rosy glow of health just flushes her cheeks. Her dark-brown eyes, from under fair eyebrows, look out upon the world with an intensity of 129expression which is surpassed in few, if any, portraits by the greatest masters; the red lips are full of character, but not more so than the hands, which are exquisitely painted. ”

“ HOLBEIN’S art was many-sided, but, through the cruel caprice of Fate, he is known to-day to most people merely as a great portrait-painter, and, in a lesser degree, as a designer of woodcut illustrations of remarkable power and imagination. ”

“ In the eyes, too, there is the suspicious watchfulness of a wild beast, so that I became quite uncomfortable from looking at it a long time; for the picture, a masterpiece of Holbein, is as true in the smallest details as if the king himself stood before you. In the very splendid dress much gold is employed. The under-sleeves are of gold, with brown shadows; the hands most strikingly true to nature; in the left he has a cane, and in the right a pair of gloves; on his head a small cap. The background is bright green. ”

“ Added to these qualities, the rich, subdued, and harmonious colour gives a still greater truth and beauty to the whole. In the panel at Darmstadt, indeed, the painter has reached the full perfection of his art, and that he painted nothing more of this nature must always be a source of deep regret to all who admire him. ”

“ The man on the right is younger and beardless. His head is turned over his shoulder towards the right, and his flat black cap is worn jauntily over one ear and covers one side of his face, while a large hat with a huge mass of feathers is slung upon his back. His right hand rests on his sword-hilt, and his left on the top of the shield. The background is one of plain architecture, in striking contrast to the highly elaborated ones to be seen in most of Holbein’s glass designs produced after his visit to Italy. ”

“ The portrait of William West is a work of great power and character, and has been attributed to Holbein himself, but the style of the painting does not accord with his. All these works are of considerably earlier date than that of the Privy Council order, which is the earliest reference so far discovered touching this painter, and it is extremely doubtful whether he had anything to do with them. One is on safer ground in attributing to him some of the portraits of King Edward, which exist in considerable numbers, two of which he certainly painted, and very possibly others. ”

“ He sits alone in his accustomed room, his common work laid out before him; he is conscious of no presence, assumes no dignity, bears no sudden or superficial look of care or interest, lives only as he lived—but for ever. It is inexhaustible. Every detail of it wins, retains, rewards the attention with a continually increasing sense of wonderfulness. It is also wholly true. So far as it reaches, it contains the absolute facts of colour, form, and character, rendered with an unaccusable faithfulness. ”