Hans Holbein

by Batschmann, Oskar; Griener, Pascal

• ISBN13: 9780691017433
• ISBN10: 0691017433
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-09-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Dept of Art &

Summary

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8-1543), one of the most versatile and admired painters of the Northern Renaissance, trained under his father in Augsburg and then worked for leading patrons in Switzerland before settling in England as Court Painter to Henry VIII. To commemorate the five-hundredth anniversary of the artist's birth, Oskar Bätschmann and Pascal Griener offer this richly illustrated book--the first comprehensive monograph on the artist to appear in more than forty years--which is a major advance in our understanding of Holbein's contribution to European art. The authors reexamine every aspect of a remarkable career, and further illuminate the artistic and cultural influences that affected the artist.Holbein was a hugely ambitious artist, and even during his formative years in Lucerne and Basel, made designs for jewelry, stained glass, and woodcuts, and painted major altarpieces and portraits. He also carried out several monumental decorative schemes for private houses and civic buildings. In his commissions, Holbein sought to rival the greatest masters of Germany and Italy, most notably Dürer and Mantegna, and by the time of his visit to France in 1524 he was determined to secure a position as Court Painter. However, Holbein soon found himself in a precarious situation as a result of the Reformation's increasing hostility toward religious works, and he left for England in 1532. While in England, in addition to decorative schemes and Triumphs, he both drew and painted numerous unrivaled likenesses of leading courtiers, merchants, and diplomats, among which is his celebrated double portrait, The Ambassadors. This book offers both a remarkable range of extant visual evidence and a rewarding and scholarly account of Holbein's oeuvre in its full historical and artistic contexts.

Table of Contents

Chronology	7	(4)
Preface	11	(2)
1 Artistic Competition and Self-definition	13	(23)
2 Figure and Movement, Invention and Narration	36	(28)
3 Monumental Decorative Works	64	(24)
4 Religious Works: The Making of Erasmian Art	88	(32)
5 Italian and Northern Art	120	(29)
6 The Portrait, Time and Death	149	(45)
7 Holbein's Fame	194	(16)
Appendix	210	(3)
References	213	(17)
Select Bibliography	230	(20)
Photographic Acknowledgements	250	(1)
Index	251