by masaccio
Saturday Art: William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury by Hans Holbein the Younger
William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, by Hans Holbein the Younger, hangs in the Louvre, on the second floor in the wing named Richelieu. Salle (room) 8 holds a number of fascinating paintings, of which this is just one example. Here’s another.
It is easy to be overwhelmed by the Louvre. Everyone wants to see the famous works, The Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo, and the Mona Lisa, all justly famous and worth seeing. After your first trip, you find other rooms, which display some of the vast history and culture of the human race.
I like portraits; in fact, I frequently look at other paintings and wonder about the models the artist used, on the grounds that many a Virgin Mary is some woman the artist knew, and it’s interesting to think about the her life. A good portrait makes us want to know more about the person. In this case, I knew that this had to be about the time Henry VIII separated the Church of England from the Vatican. Read the rest of this entry →
