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 :. | The birth of Christ | George Gisze | Portrait of an unknown man, supposed effigy of Thomas More. | Portrait of Henry Viii | Hermann von portrait |
Related Artists:
Leopold Kowalsky
French 1856-1931
Maksymilian Gierymski
Gierymski (Warsaw 1846 - Reichenhall, Bavaria 1874) was a Polish painter, specializing mainly in watercolours. He was the older brother of painter Aleksander Gierymski. As a seventeen-years-old boy, he participated in the January Uprising. He was educated at the Warsaw Drawing School initially, but then received a government scholarship in 1867 and went to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He became one of the leading painters of the Munich realistic school. Initially best known for this battle paintings, he also created many landscape paintings, especially of southern Poland, which he visited several times. Successful western Europe completely, he did not gain approval nor popularity in Poland of the 19th century, although he sent paintings to exhibitions in Warsaw regularly from 1968 on. He did however win awards at exhibitions in Munich (1869) and in Berlin (1872).
Adriaen Van Diest
was born at the Hague in 1655. He was the son of Jeronymus van Diest, a painter of sea-pieces, by whom he was instructed in the art. When he was seventeen years of age he came to London, and was employed by Granville, Earl of Bath, for whom he painted several views and ruins in the west of England. He also painted portraits, but did not meet with much encouragement, although his pictures, particularly his landscapes, possess considerable merit; as a proof of which Horace Walpole states that there were seven pictures by Van Diest in Sir Peter Lely's collection. He etched several landscapes from his own designs, in a slight, masterly style. Van Diest died in London in 1704. Unfortunately for his reputation, he is generally known by his worst pictures, which are frequently found in old houses, on wainscots, or over doors, and are executed in a hasty manner, with much mountainous background. His better pictures have changed their name.