Hans Holbein the Younger died between the 7th of October and the 29th of November 1543, leaving behind a legacy that would define the visual identity of the Tudor court for centuries. He was a German painter and printmaker of Swiss descent who worked during the Northern Renaissance, yet his most enduring fame rests on his ability to capture the soul of Henry VIII. While many artists of his time sought to flatter their patrons, Holbein possessed a rare, almost surgical precision that revealed the true character of his subjects, often stripping away the grandeur to expose the human beneath. He was born in Augsburg during the winter of 1497 to 1498, the son of Hans Holbein the Elder, an accomplished painter who ran a large and busy workshop. The younger Holbein followed his father and older brother Ambrosius into the trade, eventually moving to Basel in 1515 to apprentice under Hans Herbster. It was in this city of learning and printing that he began to forge a unique style, blending the Late Gothic tradition with the new humanist ideas sweeping across Europe. His early works, such as the murals for the House of the Dance and the Council Chamber of the Town Hall, demonstrated a mastery of religious themes that would later be challenged by the Reformation. Yet, it was his portraits of humanist figures like Desiderius Erasmus that first made his name known internationally, earning him the accolade of the Apelles of our time from the French poet Nicholas Bourbon. This legendary artist of antiquity was thought to have peerless imitation of nature, a quality Holbein would come to embody in his own work.
The Dance Of Death And The Reformation
The year 1523 marked a turning point in Holbein's career when he began work on a series of woodcuts known as The Dance of Death. This project was not merely a collection of macabre images but a profound satire that reflected the turbulent religious climate of Basel. The series, which was left incomplete by the death of the block cutter Hans Lützelburger in 1526, eventually published with 41 woodcuts by his heirs, showed the figure of Death in many disguises confronting individuals from all walks of life. None escaped Death's skeleton clutches, not even the pious. The prints were not published until 1538, perhaps because they were thought too subversive at a time of peasants' revolts. Holbein's approach to religious art was equally complex; he painted works like The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, which expressed a humanist view of Christ in tune with the reformist climate in Basel. He also created the Icones, a series of illustrations of the Old Gospel, which shared the first four figures with The Dance of Death. These works were arranged with Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel and later printed and edited in Latin by Jean and Francois Frellon. The series included 92 woodcuts and appeared in various editions, including a Spanish translation by Michael Servetus. Holbein's religious art was often ambiguous; he signed up to the revolution begun by Martin Luther while continuing to work for Erasmians and known traditionalists. His woodcuts Christ as the Light of the World and The Selling of Indulgences illustrated attacks by Luther against Rome, yet he also painted the Darmstadt Madonna, an icon of traditional piety. This duality allowed him to survive the iconoclastic riots that swept through Basel, where reformers banned imagery in churches. The only known damage to a Holbein work was to The Last Supper, part of an altarpiece, where the outer boards were lost during iconoclastic riots and the surviving section was later clumsily repaired. Despite the destruction, Holbein's art remained a powerful expression of the Reformation, blending satire with deep theological inquiry.