PORTRAIT OF GEORG GYZE. By Holbein. In the Berlin Gallery.
HOLBEIN, by himself
At 25 years of age.
Whoever understands the art of Dürer needs little introduction to that of Holbein (hole´-bine). Hans Holbein was born in 1497, when Dürer was just beginning to be famous, at the imperial city of Augsburg, which was merely a larger Nuremberg. Holbein’s father was a painter, and the lad was early perfected in the craft. By his seventeenth year he was working at Basel, where for some ten years he practised book illustration, designing for metal and glass, religious subjects, wall painting. Such versatility he renounced later for the better paying branch of portraiture. In 1526 some German merchants called him over to London. There he soon became court painter to Henry VIII, and there he remained for the most part until his death by the plague in 1543. He was one of the first of those cosmopolitan portrait painters who follow their market, a homeless man, separated from wife and children, a completely detached person. That he was fitted for the part, the sturdy, confident portrait of himself shows.
As a painter Holbein was Dürer’s superior, though inferior to him as a man. Where Dürer set his bright colors in rather harsh combinations, Holbein worked out arrangements of mosaiclike depth and brilliance. Usually the background is pale blue, green, or other solid tone, against which the pale flesh tints, with crimson, green, or black of the rich costumes, glow like some precious enamel. He is as accurate in his drawing as Dürer, with less sense of effort.
STUDIES FROM LIFE, IN THE WINDSOR COLLECTION
By Holbein.