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Phaidon Colour Library
Holbein
Book by Langdon, Helen
- GenresArt
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
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About the author
Helen Langdon
30 books5 followersArt historian and sister of novelists A.S. Byatt and Margaret Drabble.
She also published a little under her maiden name Helen Byatt
She also published a little under her maiden name Helen Byatt
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 1, 2022
Holbein’s portraits are startling in their verisimilitude. “Add but the voice and you have his whole self” — these words, inscribed on his portrait of Derich Born, could easily describe his whole body of work. Gaze at these portraits and they gaze back. You almost expect them to speak.
Holbein painted some of the most famous men of his time. Henry VIII, Erasmus, and Thomas More all were immortalized by his brush. He captured two of Henry’s wives as well, Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves. He puts you in the room with them. His attention to detail of clothes, features, and objects is meticulous, photographic. I have spent hours studying these portraits, amazed by the likenesses that reach so powerfully across time.
The text and formatting of the book are basic. An introduction at the beginning gives a sketch of the artist’s life, and introduces the Northern Renaissance and some of its other prominent artists. After this, it presents 48 plates of Holbein’s work, painting on the right page with text describing it on the left. It’s an excellent introduction to the artist, a book to which you can return often and with which you will spend hours.
Holbein painted some of the most famous men of his time. Henry VIII, Erasmus, and Thomas More all were immortalized by his brush. He captured two of Henry’s wives as well, Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves. He puts you in the room with them. His attention to detail of clothes, features, and objects is meticulous, photographic. I have spent hours studying these portraits, amazed by the likenesses that reach so powerfully across time.
The text and formatting of the book are basic. An introduction at the beginning gives a sketch of the artist’s life, and introduces the Northern Renaissance and some of its other prominent artists. After this, it presents 48 plates of Holbein’s work, painting on the right page with text describing it on the left. It’s an excellent introduction to the artist, a book to which you can return often and with which you will spend hours.
April 8, 2015
Three and a half stars. This is one of those books that contain a brief essay about an artist's life and works followed by about four dozen color plates, with brief commentary on the facing pages. It's a perfectly serviceable introduction to Holbein, and there are occasionally insights that I appreciated: "The starchy headdress Lady Eliot wears seems to have been of a design baffling even to Holbein (he had had trouble depicting Lady Guildford's in 1527)." It bothered me that the plates were not in chronological order. And there's just a juiciness to Holbein's life and times that didn't quite come across.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews