Editing Hans Holbein the Younger (section)

=== Portraits ===
[[File:Margaret, Lady Elyot by Hans Holbein the Younger.jpg|thumb|upright|''Portrait of [[Margaret à Barrow|Margaret, Lady Elyot]]'', {{circa|1532}}–34. [[Royal Collection]], Windsor Castle.]]
[[File:Sir Thomas Elyot by Hans Holbein the Younger.jpg|thumb|upright|''Portrait of Sir [[Thomas Elyot]]'', {{circa|1532}}–34. Royal Collection, [[Windsor Castle]].]]

For Holbein, "everything began with a drawing".<ref name="Strong, 7">Strong, 7.</ref> A gifted draughtsman, he was heir to a German tradition of line drawing and precise preparatory design. Holbein's chalk and ink portraits demonstrate his mastery of outline. He always made preparatory portraits of his sitters, though many drawings survive for which no painted version is known, suggesting that some were drawn for their own sake.<ref>Strong, 8; Rowlands, 118–19.</ref> Holbein produced relatively few portraits during his years in Basel. Among these were his 1516 studies of Jakob and Dorothea Meyer, sketched, like many of his father's portrait drawings, in [[silverpoint]] and chalk.<ref>Buck, 16–17.</ref>

Holbein painted most of his portraits during his two periods in England. In the first, between 1526 and 1528, he used the technique of Jean Clouet for his preliminary studies, combining black and coloured chalks on unprimed paper. In the second, from 1532 to his death, he drew on smaller sheets of pink-primed paper, adding pen and brushwork in ink to the chalk.<ref>Parker, 24–29; Foister, 103. Many of these studies have been coloured in or outlined in ink by later hands ("made worse by mending"), obstructing the analysis of Holbein's technique.</ref> Judging by the three-hour sitting given to him by Christina of Denmark, Holbein could produce such portrait studies quickly.<ref name="Strong, 7" /> Some scholars believe that he used a mechanical device to help him trace the contours of his subjects' faces.<ref>Ganz, 11; Foister, 103. Foister, however, is doubtful, owing to "the inconsistency in the sizes of the drawn heads".</ref> Holbein paid less attention to facial tones in his later drawings, making fewer and more emphatic strokes, but they are never formulaic.<ref>Parker, 28; Rowlands, 118–20.</ref> His grasp of spatial relationships ensures that each portrait, however sparely drawn, conveys the sitter's presence.<ref name="Foister15" />

Holbein's painted portraits were closely founded on drawing. Holbein transferred each drawn portrait study to the panel with the aid of geometrical instruments.<ref name="Ganz, 5">Ganz, 5.</ref> He then built up the painted surface in [[tempera]] and oil, recording the tiniest detail, down to each stitch or fastening of costume. In the view of art historian Paul Ganz, "The deep glaze and the enamel-like lustre of the colouring were achieved by means of the metallic, highly polished crayon groundwork, which admitted of few corrections and, like the preliminary sketch, remained visible through the thin layer of colour".<ref name="Ganz, 5" />
[[File:Hans Holbein der Jüngere - Der Kaufmann Georg Gisze - Google Art Project.jpg|left|thumb|''Portrait of the Merchant [[Georg Giese]]'', 1532. Oil and tempera on oak, [[Berlin State Museums]].]]
The result is a brilliant portrait style in which the sitters appear, in Foister's words, as "recognisably individual and even contemporary-seeming" people, dressed in minutely rendered clothing that provides an unsurpassed source for the history of Tudor costume.<ref>Strong, 5, 8; Foister, 15.</ref> Holbein's humanist clients valued individuality highly.<ref>North, 20.</ref> According to Strong, his portrait subjects underwent "a new experience, one which was a profound visual expression of humanist ideals".<ref>Strong, 6.</ref>

Commentators differ in their response to Holbein's precision and objectivity as a portraitist. What some see as an expression of spiritual depth in his sitters, others have called mournful, aloof, or even vacant. "Perhaps an underlying coolness suffuses their countenances," wrote Holbein's 19th-century biographer [[Alfred Woltmann]], "but behind this outward placidness lies hidden a breadth and depth of inner life".<ref>Quoted by Michael, 237.</ref> Some critics see the iconic and pared-down style of Holbein's later portraits as a regression. Kenyon Cox, for example, believes that his methods grew more primitive, reducing painting "almost to the condition of medieval illumination".<ref>Quoted by Michael, 239–40.</ref> [[Erna Auerbach]] relates the "decorative formal flatness" of Holbein's late art to the style of illuminated documents, citing the group portrait of Henry VIII and the Barber Surgeons' Company.<ref>Auerbach, 69–71.</ref> Other analysts detect no loss of powers in Holbein's last phase.<ref>Wilson, 265.</ref>

Until the later 1530s, Holbein often placed his sitters in a three-dimensional setting. At times, he included classical and biblical references and inscriptions, as well as [[drapery]], architecture, and symbolic props. Such portraits allowed Holbein to demonstrate his virtuosity and powers of allusion and metaphor, as well as to hint at the private world of his subjects. His 1532 portrait of Sir [[Brian Tuke]], for example, alludes to the sitter's poor health, comparing his sufferings to those of [[Job (Bible)|Job]]. The depiction of the [[Five wounds of Christ]] and the inscription "[[INRI]]" on Tuke's crucifix are, according to scholars Bätschmann and Griener, "intended to protect its owner against ill-health".<ref>Bätschmann & Griener, 177–81.</ref> Holbein portrays the merchant [[Georg Giese|Georg Gisze]] among elaborate symbols of science and wealth that evoke the sitter's personal [[iconography]]. However, some of Holbein's other portraits of Steelyard merchants, for example that of Derich Born, concentrate on the naturalness of the face. They prefigure the simpler style that Holbein favoured in the later part of his career.<ref>Bätschmann & Griener, 181.</ref>
[[File:Hans Holbein the Younger - Charles de Solier, Sieur de Morette - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Charles de Solier]], Sieur de Morette, 1534. {{Lang|de|[[Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister]]|italic=no}}, Dresden.]]
Study of Holbein's later portraits has been complicated by the number of copies and derivative works attributed to him. Scholars now seek to distinguish the true Holbeins by the refinement and quality of the work.<ref>Rowlands, 118–20.</ref> The hallmark of Holbein's art is a searching and perfectionist approach discernible in his alterations to his portraits. In the words of art historian John Rowlands:

<blockquote>This striving for perfection is very evident in his portrait drawings, where he searches with his brush for just the right line for the sitter's profile. The critical faculty in making this choice and his perception of its potency in communicating decisively the sitter's character is a true measure of Holbein's supreme greatness as a portrait painter. Nobody has ever surpassed the revealing profile and stance in his portraits: through their telling use, Holbein still conveys across the centuries the character and likeness of his sitters with unrivalled mastery.<ref>Rowlands, 122.</ref></blockquote>