After yesterday's reflections on the Tudor court artist Hans Holbein, some final thoughts on how he managed to portray Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell so unflatteringly without negative consequences.
HANDS OFF HOLBEIN - II
And there's that other Holbein portrait, of Henry's fixer Cromwell,
Showing not the sensitive hero of Mantel's novels
But a pasty-faced, shifty-eyed bully-boy,
Quite up to monastery destruction and much else.
Holbein knew well what beauty, in both sexes, was.
Think of the portrait of the two ambassadors
With the trick skull in the foreground,
Both handsome, dark-haired, young men in their prime,
Or the sketches of court women, sensitive and delicate,
Still radiating feminine appeal over the centuries.
So was Holbein rashly risking reputation and even life itself
With the candour of those images of king and minion?
Perhaps the explanation is the even greater
Arrogance of an artist in his prime,
Aware of his own god-given power -
The awesome divine right of creativity.
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