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 :. | Anne de Cleves reine d'Angleterre,quatrieme epouse d'Henri VIII | The astronomer Nikolaus Kratzer (mk45) | John | Edward VI as a Child | Noli me Tangere |
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Joseph Barney
(1753 - 13 April 1832), was an English artist and engraver. He is usually described as a pupil of Antonio Zucchi and Angelica Kauffmann and as a fruit and flower painter to the Prince Regent. He was born in Wolverhampton. Two of his large-scale paintings - altar pieces eThe Deposition from the Crosse (1781) and eThe Apparition of Our Lord to St Thomase (1784) have been preserved in Wolverhampton, and can be seen today at St Johnes church and at St Peter & St Paules Roman Catholic church. During Barneyes life-time, his artistic achievements were respected and praised. In 1798, Stebbing Shaw, mentioning eThe Deposition from the Crosse in his eHistory of Staffordshiree called Barney a enative geniuse of Wolverhampton. In the collection of Wolverhampton Art Gallery, there is a pen and ink drawing, eA Blind Musiciane, which gives some additional idea of quality and versatility of Barneyes works.
Karl Julius von Leypold
German, 1805-1874
Ivan Bilibin
(Russian, 16 August [O.S. 4 August] 1876 - 7 February 1942) was a 20th-century illustrator and stage designer who took part in the Mir iskusstva and contributed to the Ballets Russes. Throughout his career, he was inspired by Slavic folklore. Ivan Bilibin was born in a suburb of St. Petersburg. He studied in 1898 at Anton Ažbe Art School in Munich, then under Ilya Repin in St. Peterburg. In 1902-1904 Bilibin travelled in the Russian North, where he became fascinated with old wooden architecture and Russian folklore. He published his findings in the monograph Folk Arts of the Russian North in 1904. Another influence on his art was traditional Japanese prints. Bilibin gained renown in 1899, when he released his illustrations of Russian fairy tales. During the Russian Revolution of 1905, he drew revolutionary cartoons. He was the designer for the 1909 premiere production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel. The October Revolution, however, proved alien to him. After brief stints in Cairo and Alexandria, he settled in Paris in 1925. There he took to decorating private mansions and Orthodox churches. He still longed for his homeland and, after decorating the Soviet Embassy in 1936, he returned to Soviet Russia. He delivered lectures in the Soviet Academy of Arts until 1941. Bilibin died during the Siege of Leningrad.