(In the National Gallery, London)
This picture, painted by Holbein when he was at the zenith of his
powers, is well known to visitors to our National Gallery. The
figures have been identified by some authorities as Jean de
Dinteville and George de Selve, one was the French Ambassador
to King Henry's Court, the other a great scholar who also served
diplomacy. Both died young. The picture has roused controversy,
as certain writers are of opinion that the subjects are Henry
and Philip, Counts Palatine of the Rhine.
[Illustration]
Some men are echoes of their own time. Circumstance has made them what
they are; their work, however greatly it may please their generation,
does nothing to probe the future, to indicate the direction that thought
or taste will follow, nor does it set an example for those who are to
come. Hans Holbein the younger is of the smaller and more distinguished
class that accepts tradition just so far as it is useful or indispensable,
and can face the problems of changing seasons and new thought with perfect
confidence and unerring instinct, finding no terror in change. His father
was an artist, and this fact would seem to have marked out his path
in life. But, considering the work he did, in its extent and quality,
we have every reason to believe that the artist was born to succeed,
and that had he been an engineer, a general, or a statesman, he would
have left the same indelible mark upon his generation, and would have
been remembered with gratitude and admiration by those who came after
him. For he was the strong man armed at all points, who chose to be an
artist, though many another path before him would have led to fame.
It is not difficult, if one has a certain measure of talent, to impose
upon one's contemporaries. Criticism is seldom exhaustive or final
until time has taken its stand between man and his labours, adjusting
the earlier perspective that is seldom correct and never exact, but with
Holbein the case was different. His generation recognised a genius to
which we pay tribute after 350 years have passed away.
"I could make six peers out of six ploughmen," said Henry VIII., who
was no mean judge; "but out of six peers I could not make one Holbein."
We who come to pay our tribute of admiration so long after opinion,
good or bad, has ceased to concern the artist, are at no small
disadvantage. We can learn little or nothing about the personal details
of his life; the year of his birth and even the place are in dispute,
while between the various authorities who deal with the date of his death
there is a difference of no less than twelve years, although the balance
of evidence is greatly in favour of the earlier date and shorter life.
Moreover, a great part of the artist's output is lost. In these days,
when the work of old masters is being discovered so frequently, and
many a forgotten _chef d'oeuvre_ is being rescued from oblivion,
there is every reason to hope that the future has something valuable
in store for us. But we know that, as far as this country is concerned,
much of the labour of Holbein's hands has passed beyond recall. During
the Commonwealth many of the artist's pictures were sent to the
Continent, the great fire in the Whitehall destroyed some priceless
works, and the drawings that attract so many artists to Windsor have had
a very chequered career. As far as we can learn, they were collected
in the first place by King Edward VI., and were then sold in France,
where their owner sold them back to Charles I., who, in his turn,
disposed of them to the Earl of Pembroke, from whom they passed to
the Earl of Arundel, who disposed of them to King Charles II., who was
probably advised in the transaction by Sir Peter Lely. Then they were
taken to Kensington Palace, thrown into a drawer and forgotten until,
in the time of the Georges, Queen Caroline discovered some and King
George III. found the rest. When Queen Victoria ruled over us the Prince
Consort gave these masterpieces their present frames and places, and we
may presume that they will never be disturbed. It is not unreasonable
to suppose that the experience of this famous collection is typical
of that which has befallen many other works from the same hand. Our
interest in fine art is comparatively modern; only in the last hundred
years have the rank and file of cultured, wealthy, or leisured people
bethought them of the great treasures that lay neglected in the highways
and byways of big cities; and we must not forget that damp, neglect,
and indifference are troubles that have a very serious and unfavourable
effect upon works of art. The favour extended to a fine picture must be
enduring, nor will ten generations of careful attention atone for ten
years of bad housing and neglect.
We owe a great deal to Holbein, because he was one of the few great
painters of the sixteenth century who pictured the commercial age that
others had held in contempt. He seems to have seen that Europe had
reached the parting of the ways, and that war was no longer to stand
as the greatest interest of national life. To realise how the temper
of the world has changed, we need do no more than remember that if the
sword is drawn in the twentieth century it is in the service of commerce.
The Renaissance that worked so many wonders in Italy opened Holbein's
eyes and broadened his point of view, but after the first few years
he turned aside from the Italian influence and looked upon the life
around him with eyes that had been aided rather than blinded by the
bright light that shone over Milan, Florence, and Venice. He was a
realist with an exquisite sense of proportion, and a definite certainty
of intention and expression, that kept him from playing tricks with his
art. As great opportunities came to him, he took such complete advantage
of them that to-day we may turn to his work and read in it the history
of his own fascinating times. He has left us a gallery of the people who
ruled a considerable section of middle and western Europe in the first
half of the sixteenth century, when the near East was still untouched
by Christian civilisation, and few artists looked beyond the Adriatic
for sitters or for patronage.
No small part of the Tudor period lives again under Holbein's hand. He
gives us the vivid and enduring impression of an age that had found
itself, and his subjects walk with fact, just as the creations of his
great contemporary Albert Dürer had walked with fancy. As he saw them so
he portrayed them, and history brings no charge of flattery against him
save in the case of Anne of Cleves, whose portrait he painted for King
Henry VIII. before that much married monarch had seen her. Here he is
said to have been guilty of flattery, but it was generally believed at
the time that Thomas Cromwell, who was his patron and had commissioned
the portrait, was responsible for it. The fact that King Henry himself
accepted this view, and that Cromwell suffered for it, suggests that
there must be no little foundation for the story, though the king
certainly understood the worth of a great artist too well to quarrel
with him.