Top Twenty Artworks 11 Holbein

Contemporary, portrait, landscape, painting, best, top ten, paintings, oil, artist, artists, painter, gallery, life, figure, graphite, sketch, Snowdonia, drawings, pencil, Art, geometry, composition, Master, Masterpiece, Welsh, Wales. 

'Portrait of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey' 

Black and Coloured Chalks, pen and ink, watercolour on pink primed paper. 
 by Hans Holbein the Younger. 
Now in the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.

In previous posts I have shown my top ten favourite artworks. But I fancy going a little further and extending the selection. So, if you don't object....

The next on my list of top twenty favourite artworks is a drawing. Seems quite modest to choose a small chalk drawing. But then it is by Hans Holbein. And, in all honesty, I could have chosen any of a dozen of his many portrait drawings, they are all so brilliant.

The one above is of Henry Howard.

Howard was a poet and art lover, who it seems, enjoyed sitting for portraits. (There exists another drawing, and an oil painting, also by Holbein). Like his father and grandfather, he was a brave and able soldier, serving in Henry VIII's French wars as "Lieutenant General of the King on Sea and Land." 

He was repeatedly imprisoned for rash behaviour, on one occasion for striking a courtier, on another for wandering through the streets of London breaking the windows of sleeping people. He became Earl of Surrey in 1524 when his grandfather died and his father became Duke of Norfolk. 

He was executed in 1547, convicted of 'inappropriately using the Royal Arms of England'.

Personally I think he seems like a bit of a prat. Nowadays he probably would have spent his youth ligging about in the Bullingdon Club before becoming a cabinet minister!

One question that always strikes me with Holbein's elegant and economic portrait drawings is, - did he use a camera obscura? Perfectly possible. Many artists of the Northern Renaissance used a camera (n.b., the painters tended to belong to the same guild as the glass and lens makers). And the look of the line work suggests it probably was. (Plus the small size of the drawing (25 x 21 cm)).

The way the lines are drawn (looking like they may have been traced) puts me in mind of the drawn portraits by Ingres, who definitely used a camera lucida. David Hockney points out the difference between the quality of a traced line and that of a line which has been 'eyeballed' in his fascinating book 'Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters'.

Here is Holbein's oil painting of Howard.

'Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey'

Oil Painting, by Hans Holbein the Younger

Museu de Arte, Sao Paulo, Brazil

             quiz  quiz quiz  quiz  quiz       “details, details............”    quiz  quiz  quiz  quiz  quiz          

Tricky one this, - any idea who painted this detail, and in which painting?

(The answer will be in the next posting.)

And here's the answer from the last posting -

'The Swing'.  

by Renoir, 1876, Musee d'Orsay, Paris

             quiz  quiz quiz  quiz  quiz       “details, details............”    quiz  quiz  quiz  quiz  quiz          

"A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people." 

Edgar Degas.

And to see the 'Red' Virtual online (mentioned in a previous post) competition/exhibition here is the link :-

http://www.gallery25n.com/RED_Art-2015.html

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. . . . and now, a Recommended Read . . . .

Heretic.

Why Islam needs a Reformation now.
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

This is a very important book, written by an ex-muslim believer in Jihad, arguing for an urgent and thorough reformation of Islam. 

Hirsi Ali convincingly explains and discusses the meaning and the roots of Jihad; the treatment of women under Islam; the real justifications for Islamic terrorism; the coming caliphate; Christophobia; why middle-class intelligent young people become suicide bombers, the possibility that a Reformation is already beginning, etc.

In my opinion this book should be mandatory reading for all politicians, in all countries.

Published by Harper

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