b. 1497, Augsburg, d. 1543, London was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century.[2] He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history of book design. He is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from his father, Hans Holbein the Elder, an accomplished painter of the Late Gothic school. Born in Augsburg, Holbein worked mainly in Basel as a young artist. At first he painted murals and religious works and designed for stained glass windows and printed books. He also painted the occasional portrait, making his international mark with portraits of the humanist Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. When the Reformation reached Basel, Holbein worked for reformist clients while continuing to serve traditional religious patrons. His Late Gothic style was enriched by artistic trends in Italy, France, and the Netherlands, as well as by Renaissance Humanism. The result was a combined aesthetic uniquely his own. Holbein travelled to England in 1526 in search of work, with a recommendation from Erasmus. He was welcomed into the humanist circle of Thomas More, where he quickly built a high reputation. After returning to Basel for four years, he resumed his career in England in 1532. This time he worked for the twin founts of patronage, Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. By 1535, he was King's Painter to King Henry VIII. In this role, he produced not only portraits and festive decorations but designs for jewellery, plate, and other precious objects. His portraits of the royal family and nobles are a vivid record of a brilliant court in the momentous years when Henry was asserting his supremacy over the English church. Holbein's art was prized from early in his career. The French poet and reformer Nicholas Bourbon dubbed him "the Apelles of our time".[3] Holbein has also been described as a great "one-off" of art history, since he founded no school.[4] After his death, some of his work was lost, but much was collected, and by the 19th century, Holbein was recognised among the great portrait masters. Recent exhibitions have also highlighted his versatility.   Related Paintings of Hans holbein the younger :. | Portrait of a Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling | Portrait of an Old Man | The Ambassadors | Portrat des William Warham, Erzbischof von Canterbury | The Ambassadors |
Related Artists:
MORAZZONE
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1573-1625
MASTER of Saint Veronica
German Gothic Era Painter, active ca.1395-1420
Pryanishnikov Illarion
1840-1894,Russian painter. He studied from 1856 to 1866 at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow and subsequently taught there (1873-94). Among his pupils were Sergey Ivanov and Sergey Korovin. Pryanishnikov was among the fifteen founder-members of the Peredvizhniki (WANDERERS) and contributed two works to their first exhibition. His narrative pictures of the 1860s embodied the critical trend in early Russian Realism and focused on the trials and sorrows of the lower classes; his Jokers (1865; Moscow, Tret yakov Gal.) shows a petty clerk performing stunts for the amusement of some wealthy merchants. The Convoy of Empty Sleds (1871; Kharkiv, Mus. F.A.) conveys a fine sense of the bleak winter landscape. His later work added northern scenery and genre scenes to his repertory as in Saviour Day in the North (1887; Moscow, Tret yakov Gal.) and Return from the Fair (1883; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). Pryanishnikov is also known for his hunting scenes. In 1893 he became a member of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts.