The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (226 page)

(1517–84).
Portuguese draughtsman,
miniaturist
, and writer on art, the son of a Netherlandish miniaturist,
Antonio de Holanda
, who spent part of his career in Lisbon. Francisco grew up in Portugal. In 1538–9 he visited Rome and produced a volume of drawings (now in the Escorial, near Madrid) which contains interesting portraits and drawings of Roman antiquities that are an important source of information about 16th-cent. collecting and archaeology. Although he became Court Painter in Lisbon, his influence in propagating the Italianate style in Portugal was exercised mainly through his writings. In 1548 he completed a manuscript entitled
Da Pintura Antigua
(Of Ancient Painting), which was not published until 1890–6. It contains four dialogues (Eng. trans., 1928) in which Holanda purportedly discusses theories of art with
Michelangelo
, the miniaturist Giulio
Clovio
, and others. As an appendage Holanda completed in 1549 ten dialogues entitled
Do tirar polo natural
(On Drawing from Nature).

 
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(1497/8–1543).
German painter and designer, chiefly celebrated as one of the greatest of all portraitists. He trained in his native Augsburg with his father,
Hans Holbein the Elder
(
c.
1465–1524)—another son,
Ambrosius
(1494–
c.
1519), was also a painter—and in about 1514 moved to Basle. There he quickly found employment as a designer for printers, and in 1516 he painted portraits of Burgomaster Meyer and his wife (Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle). From 1517 to 1519 he was working in Lucerne, assisting his father on the decoration of a house for the von Hertenstein family (now destroyed). It is possible that during this time he crossed the Alps to Lombardy, for on his return to Basle, where he was to remain until 1526, his style was less harsh, his modelling softer, and his composition more monumental. The harrowing
Christ in the Tomb
(Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, 1521 or 1522), for example, has a power of expression combined with a mastery of
chiaroscuro
that almost rivals
Leonardo
.
He was now the leading painter in Basle, and gained an important commission for decorating the Town Hall with scenes of
Justice
taken from classical history. Apart from fragments in the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle, these are lost, but are known from copies. He also continued to work for printers, producing between 1523 and 1526 his best-known work in this field, the series on the
Dance of Death.
Since these reflected the new critical outlook of the Reformation, they were not published until 1538 in Lyons, when they enjoyed enormous popularity, running into many editions. His most notable portraits in these years are those of Erasmus (Louvre, Paris; Earl of Radnor Coll., Longford Castle, Wiltshire; and Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle; all
c.
1523). In them, perhaps by the sitter's wish, he used for the first time the formula of the scholar in his study, first devised by Quentin
Massys
, also for a portrait of Erasmus. A visit to France in 1524 gave Holbein further knowledge of
Renaissance
painting, especially through the works of
Raphael
in the royal collection, and the effect may be seen in the
Madonna of Burgomaster Meyer
(Schlossmuseum, Darmstadt, 1526). Mother and Child alike have an ideal beauty which is quite unGerman, though the
donor
portraits have a splendid naturalism.
The disturbances of the Reformation meant a decline of patronage in Basle, and in 1526, armed with an introduction from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More , Holbein sought work in England. His great group portrait of the More family (lost, but later copies in the NPG, London, and Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire) is a landmark in European art, for no previous artist had produced a group portrait of full-length figures in their own home. A number of single portraits date from this visit, but Holbein obtained no commissions for subject pictures and returned home in 1528. Basle, however, had changed. Religious pictures were banned and there was much religious strife. Holbein accepted the Reformed religion, continued his work at the Town Hall, and made many designs for stained glass. In 1532, leaving his family, he returned to England. More was now out of favour and Holbein found new patrons in the German Steelyard Merchants, for whom he painted several portraits and did decorative work.
Through the Steelyards he probably met Thomas Cromwell (portrait, Frick Coll., New York, 1532–3), who may have obtained for him the commission for his famous double portrait
The Ambassadors
(NG, London, 1533), and almost certainly helped him to gain royal patronage. By 1536 he was working for Henry VIII, and in the next year undertook his most famous English work, the wall-painting in Whitehall Palace of Henry VIII with his father and mother and his third wife, Jane Seymour. Though the picture perished in 1698, part of the
cartoon
survives (NPG, London) and the formidable figure of the King standing four-square and staring at the spectator is well known through copies. The only portrait of the King indisputably from Holbein's hand is a bust-length picture in the Thyssen collection in Madrid, a type of which numerous replicas exist. The King also sent Holbein abroad to paint prospective brides—
Anne of Cleves
(Louvre, 1539),
Christina, Duchess of Milan
(NG, London, 1538). Numerous other members of the court are portrayed in paintings and in drawings, a marvellous collection of which is in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Many designs for decoration survive from Holbein's last years, when he also turned to
miniature
painting, to which his exquisitely detailed craftsmanship was eminently suited. Holbein's portraits were much copied, but none of his followers in England approached the penetration of his characterization or the virtuosity of his technique. Only in miniature painting did he have a worthy successor in
Hilliard
.

 
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(1607–77).
Bohemian engraver and watercolourist, born in Prague. He trained in the workshop of
Merian
in Frankfurt, and became one of the foremost engravers of topographical views in the 17th cent. In 1636, while working in Cologne, he met the English connoisseur, the Earl of
Arundel
, who took him on a tour of Europe to make views for his private collections. On account of his English connections Hollar finally settled in London—during the Civil War he fought on the Royalist side—and his views of the city form an invaluable record of its appearance before the Great Fire of 1666. He was very prolific and engraved a wide range of subjects apart from views.

 
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(1836–1910).
American landscape, marine, and
genre
painter. He came to painting from illustration (chiefly for
Harper's Weekly
) and
Prisoners from the Front
(Met. Mus., New York, 1866), one of his first important oils, has a quality of vivid, unromanticized reportage. He aspired to naturalistic recording and expressed his attitude in the words: ‘When I have selected the thing carefully, I paint it exactly as it appears.’ In 1867 Homer visited Paris; he was influenced by
Manet's
broad tonal contrasts, but he explored the rendering of light and colour in a direction other than that of the
Impressionists
—instead of dissolving outline into light and atmosphere, he sought luminosity within a firm construction of clear outline and broad planes of light and dark (
Long Branch, New Jersey
, Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston, 1869). The sea was Homer's favourite subject, and after living near Tynemouth on the rugged coast of north-east England in 1881–2 he settled at Prout's Neck on the Maine coast, where he lived in isolation. His pictures of the Maine coast, which represent the power and solitude of the sea and the contest of man with the forces of nature, are his best-known works. Homer was an artist of considerable originality who, through a bold, vivid, and personal naturalism, created an imaginative vision of nature that has come to be accepted as a reflection of American pioneering spirit. He used watercolour with the force and authority of oil (
Inside the Bar, Tynemouth
, Met. Mus., 1883).