Hans Holbein the Younger

“ As far back as 1676 it was published by Patin in his edition of the Praise of Folly as Holbein’s portrait from his own hand. It bears, too, a strong likeness to the portraits of Holbein as a boy by the elder Hans, both in the “St. Paul” picture and in the drawing of 1511 of the two brothers at Berlin. There is the same massive head, with its fine forehead, breadth of cheek-bones, strong chin, and firm mouth. It has great resemblance, too, when due allowance has been made for the passing of twenty years or so, to the miniature portraits of himself which he painted at the end of his life. ”

“ Hans Holbein the younger is of the smaller and more distinguished class that accepts tradition just so far as it is useful or indispensable, and can face the problems of changing seasons and new thought with perfect confidence and unerring instinct, finding no terror in change. His father was an artist, and this fact would seem to have marked out his path in life. ”

“ His eager mind employed itself with the whys and wherefores of things, not satisfied with the simple pleasure that sight bestows. In his engravings, even more than in his pictures, we ponder the hidden meanings; we are not content to look and rejoice in beauty, though there is much to charm the eye. His problems were the problems of life as well as the problems of art.
The other great artist of Germany, Hans Holbein the younger, was the son of Hans Holbein the elder, a much esteemed painter in Augsburg. ”

“ 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.... ”

“ As a portrait it is a magnificent study. The face is a strong one, of a somewhat serious cast, but with a suggestion of humour about the finely shaped mobile mouth and in the clear brown eyes. The broadly built head with its high forehead indicates strength of character and intellectual capacity, and there is a quiet dignity and a sense of power in the whole countenance and in the carriage of the youthful figure, which one would expect to find in the likeness of a painter possessed, as Holbein was, of such brilliant technical abilities and so wonderful a creative genius. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If in any branch of his art he can be said to have had a conscience at this period, we should say that he showed it in his portrait drawings. It is seldom that we find a painted likeness worthy of the name. The drawings of which numbers are still preserved in the galleries of Basel, Berlin and Copenhagen show extraordinary quickness and delicacy of hand, and a wonderful facility for seizing character; and this happily is one of the features which Holbein bequeathed to his more famous son, Hans the younger. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ During the painting of the great family picture, or, in any case, while the preliminary studies were being made, and other single portraits of members of More’s household taken, Holbein, no doubt, remained as a guest at Chelsea, if only for the convenience of the several sitters, but that he stayed throughout the whole of his first English visit as More’s guest is doubtful. He would, naturally, wish for a studio and lodging of his own, however humble, where he would be free to do just as he liked. ”

“ THE NOSTELL PRIORY PICTURE The whole arrangement is of a somewhat formal and stately character, and both in the attitudes and occupations of the figures indicates a house of learning; even in the foreground books are scattered all over the floor. This masterly sketch, small as it is, is full of character. Each figure has marked individuality, and Holbein, with a few slight touches of his pencil, has in every case given a most truthful likeness, as may be proved by comparison with the larger studies of seven of the heads now in the Windsor Collection. ”

“ Hans Holbein the Elder, whose exceptional ability as an artist has always been overshadowed by the greater genius of his celebrated son, was one of the most representative painters of the Swabian School at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. ”

“ VISIT TO THE SOUTH OF FRANCE Nothing is known of this journey undertaken by Holbein, but it is not at all likely that he set out solely as the messenger of Erasmus, for the set purpose of delivering the portrait to Amerbach. It is much more probable that the desire for travel was still strong in him, and that the spirit of adventure, combined with the wish to discover fresh fields for the practice of his art, may have sent him forth as a wanderer again. ”

“ Law, “represents a youngish man, not more than twenty-eight, we should say, seen in a nearly complete profile, turned to the left, the light coming in from the right. He is dressed in a plain, dark-coloured coat or mantle; with the small white collar of his shirt showing, the two strings of which hang down untied. His two hands, which are drawn and painted with all Holbein’s strength and precision, are both seen, the knuckles of the left being turned frontwards to the spectator, and the palm of the right upwards, with the fingers just touching the end of his beard. ”

“ Winn in every one of his conclusions, which would necessitate the belief that Holbein himself painted no less than three versions of the Family Group—the one in distemper, which was sold by the artist to De Loo, and afterwards purchased by Giles Heron, now so injured that “it is impossible to judge of its authenticity”; the one in oil painted for Sir Thomas, which remained at Barnborough in the possession of John More and his descendants, and has been cut down and subjected to “unpardonable neglect”; and the Roper picture now at Nostell Priory. ”

“ Thus thou addest one cause of complaint to another, and aimest at oppressing the good, pious youth as far as thou canst and in causing his ruin. This thine unfriendly conduct has caused us not a little regret; we had in no wise foreseen it, but had rather hoped that if any one sought to hinder another in his success and welfare, thou would’st have taken up his cause and protected him.... Besides, this Philipp Holbein is in his minority, and is under the care of Franz Schmid, his brother, our citizen, and without his help and authority is qualified for no lawsuit ”

“ Ganz’s Holbein, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, January 15, 1912, speaks of the “half-confidences” of Holbein’s portraiture, and holds that although the painter himself sees clearly the inmost depths of his sitters’ characters, he yet refrains from revealing them to us. When the moment comes for laying bare their deepest feelings “the prudent Swabian workman, through his instinctive reserve, holds back.” ”

“ It is, however, impossible that the portrait can have been painted in that year, when Henry was not forty. He appears to be at least fifteen years older than this. The head and hands are good, but the style of painting has little in common with that of Holbein, while the details of the dress lack the beauty, delicacy, and truth of draughtsmanship which are to be found in his work. There is a portrait in the collection of the Marquis of Bute, which, according to Dr. Waagen, is “exactly like the picture by Holbein at Warwick Castle, only less finished.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine how much of them was the work of Hans and how much that of his brother Ambrosius. The three which do not form part of the Amerbach collection were regarded at the time of their acquisition by the Basel Gallery as the handiwork of Holbein the Elder, but this ascription has been long since abandoned. Mr. Davies is of opinion that the “Pilate Washing his Hands” is entirely the work of the younger Hans, and that “The Scourging” is almost wholly by him, while he gives “The Agony in the Garden” and “The Arrest” to Ambrosius alone. ”

“ What suggestion could be more fantastic than that in painting the Venus, Holbein’s love for the lady was so great that both hand and eye faltered in depicting her charms, and that he could only do full justice to her beauty when his affection was dead and her loveliness made him shudder? A more recent writer [519] is of opinion that Holbein succumbed to the charms of Magdalena Offenburg before his marriage, and that she deigned to honour the young Swabian painter with her favours almost directly after his return to Basel from Lucerne. ”

“ Among them all, however, there was no one who in any way approached the greatness of Holbein as an artist. Several men of considerable skill and some artistic pretensions remained in England for more or less lengthy periods, but there was no master of the first rank either from Italy or Flanders. Unlike his rival, Francis I, Henry was unable to attract to his Court men of such outstanding powers as Leonardo da Vinci, Benvenuto Cellini, or Primaticcio, all of whom entered the service of the French Crown. ”

“ This is certainly by no means too high praise, for both miniatures are delightful renderings of childhood, drawn with all Holbein’s keen perception, and faultless in their precision of line and delightfulness of colouring. The elder boy, Henry (Pl. 31 (1) ) , [495] aged five, is shown to the waist, full-face, leaning with his left arm on a table at his side, his head slightly bent in the same direction. He is wearing a black velvet dress with green under-sleeves, and a black hat with a white feather. His fair hair is cut straight across his forehead, and there is a rather sad look in his eyes. ”

“ Ganz, the series was begun, but not completed, by Holbein in 1523, his journey to the south of France intervening. On his return to Basel he resumed the work, which was probably finished by the end of the same year or early in 1524. He sees differences, more particularly in the architecture, in certain of the drawings, such as the “Mocking,” which suggest that the artist had gained fresh ideas from his study of the buildings in the towns through which he passed on his way to Montpellier, where he went to deliver the portrait of Erasmus to Bonifacius Amerbach. ”

“ On the other hand, among a number of fine drawings in continental museums there are, in addition to the two earlier and three later ones of the members of the Meyer family, only two—the Morette in Dresden and the Sir Nicholas Carew in Basel—of which the finished paintings still exist.
There is no doubt that Holbein’s practice as a portrait painter during his second and longer residence in England was almost entirely confined to the court and to those who were in the King’s employment. ”