German 1497-1543 Hans Holbein Galleries Holbein always made highly detailed pencil drawings of his portrait subjects, often supplemented with ink and colored chalk. The drawings emphasize facial detail and usually did not include the hands; clothing was only indicated schematically. The outlines of these drawings were then transferred onto the support for the final painting using tiny holes in the paper through which powdered charcoal was transmitted; in later years Holbein used a kind of carbon paper. The final paintings thus had the same scale as the original drawings. Although the drawings were made as studies for paintings, they stand on their own as independent, finely wrought works of art. How many portraits have been lost can be seen from Holbein's book (nearly all pages in the Royal Collection) containing preparatory drawings for portraits - of eighty-five drawings, only a handful have surviving Holbein paintings, though often copies have survived. David Hockney has speculated in the Hockney-Falco thesis that Holbein used a concave mirror to project an image of the subject onto the drawing surface. The image was then traced. However this thesis has not met with general acceptance from art historians. A subtle ability to render character may be noted in Holbein's work, as can be seen in his portraits of Thomas Cromwell, Desiderius Erasmus, and Henry VIII. The end results are convincing as definitive images of the subjects' appearance and personality.  Related Paintings of Hans Holbein :. | William Warham,archeveque de Canterbury en 1504 | Portrait of a Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling | The Ambassadors | Portrait of Fane Seymour,Queen of England | Portrait of the Merchant Georg Gisze |
Related Artists:
George L. Seymour
British, act. 1876 - 1916 Seymour was a son of Lord Hugh Seymour (himself a son of Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford) and Anna Horatia Waldegrave (a daughter of James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave) and entered the Royal Navy in 1797. He captained HMS Pallas during the Battle of Basque Roads and HMS Leonidas and HMS Fortun??e during the War of 1812. For his part in the latter war, he was appointed a CB in 1815 (alongside many other Captains) and a KCH in 1831 (and later a GCH in 1834). He rose through the ranks in the navy over the years and in 1852 was appointed a KCB (and later a GCB in 1860) and finally as an Admiral of the Fleet in 1866.
Franz von Stuck
German Symbolist/Expressionist Painter and Sculptor, 1863-1928 Stuck was born at Tettenweis, in Bavaria. From an early age he displayed an affinity for drawing and caricature. To begin his artistic education in 1878 he went to Munich, where he would settle for life. From 1881 to 1885 Stuck attended the Munich Academy. He first made a name with cartoons for Fliegende Blätter, and vignette designs for programmes and book decoration. In 1889 he exhibited his first paintings at the Munich Glass Palace, winning a gold medal for The Guardian of Paradise. In 1892 Stuck co-founded the Munich Secession, and also executed his first sculpture, Athlete. The following year he won further acclaim with the critical and public success of what is now his most famous work, The Sin. Also in 1893, Stuck was awarded a gold medal for painting at the Chicago World's Fair and was appointed to a royal professorship. In 1895 he began teaching painting at the Munich Academy. In 1897 Stuck married an American widow, Mary Lindpainter, and began work designing his own residence and studio, the Villa Stuck. His designs for the villa included everything from layout to interior decorations; for his furniture Stuck received another gold medal at the 1900 Paris World Exposition. Having attained a high degree of fame by this time, Stuck was elevated to the aristocracy on December 9, 1905 and would receive further public honours from around Europe during the remainder of his life. Even as new trends in art left Stuck behind, he continued to be highly respected among young artists in his capacity as professor at the Munich Academy. Notable students of his over the years include Paul Klee, Hans Purrmann, Wassily Kandinsky, and Josef Albers. Franz von Stuck died in 1928; his funeral address memorialized him as "the last prince of art of Munich's great days". He is buried in the Munich Waldfriedhof next to his wife Mary.
Walter Langley.RI
1852-1922