Holbein in England
Tate Britain, London

Nicky Charlish
posted 16 November 2006

We all know that the line about the camera never lying is rubbish. But the idea that the camera has displaced the painting still seems to have credence. That's wrong, too. The painter can bore into the skull beneath the skin just as effectively as any pretentious snapper. This exhibition of work by Hans Holbein the Younger shows why.

Born in 1497/8, Holbein was trained in his father's workshop in Augsburg, Southern Germany, before coming to work in England. He needed powerful patrons to avert the anger of rival English painters, and he got it in the form of being appointed court painter by Henry VIII. Holbein carried out his work in England between 1526-8 and 1532-43. What he gives us are pictures of a variety of contemporary figures and attitudes, with no nuance left undepicted.

Holbein's Erasmus (1523) shows the thin-lipped critical commentator and theologian as clever, confident and - with a surprising hint of flamboyance - having several rings on his left hand. Meanwhile, his Design for Sir Thomas More and his Family (1526-7) shows More, the humanist and politician (and one-time friend of Erasmus until he thought that the reformer's critiques of Roman Catholicism would lead to its dissolution instead) with an air of quiet, thoughtful self-confidence. One of the changes that More requested to the original drawing was the pose of his wife so, instead of kneeling as originally depicted, she sits instead, looking down but with an expression that seems argumentative, almost petulant. And Robert Cheseman (dated 1533) shows us this falconer (who may also have been a courtier), with a distant, wary glare as he holds a falcon which regards him almost disdainfully.

In the popular imagination - an often dumb brute - the Tudor period is associated with innocent rumpy-pumpy. Holbein's painting of c.1533-6 entitled with a line from Petrarch E Cosi Desio me Mena ('And so desire carried me along') shows sex in a rather different light. A horse (a symbol of passion), gallops so fast that its emaciated body seems on the verge of coming apart, whilst its rider has a powerfully furtive expression. No schoolboy ever desired a top-shelf magazine more strongly - or more recklessly. Meanwhile Sir John Godsalve (c.1532-3) MP for Norwich, exemplifies another character who would be able to achieve a quantum leap under the Tudor aegis - the man on the make - with a shifty, 'I've got away with it' expression.

But it's with Henry himself that Holbein's disturbing 'warts and all' illustrative power most effectively manifests itself. Henry VIII (c.1537) shows the monarch watching us suspiciously from the corner of his eyes, his mouth set into a tough - but controlled - sneer, the splendour of his robes adding to the sense of menace. Henry VIII (c.1540-5?) (by the workshop or associate of Hans Holbein the Younger), shows the monarch with his feet wide apart, like a pub brawler, with smouldering rage, just before launching an attack.

But it's the drawing of Henry VII and King Henry VII (1537) that is the most disturbing of Holbein's work in this exhibition. Henry VIII is assertively defensive, his empty expression - indeed, his inner emptiness - emphasised by the padded shoulders of his robes. Behind him - almost as if he's being edged-out of historical memory and significance - stands his father. Henry VII's ghostly features, heavy eyes and expression of an almost immeasurable sadness, suggest that he can feel a sense of his hard-won dynastic hopes coming to an end with his son, as well as - perhaps more shockingly to him - the end of traditional religious belief too.

The spirit of Henry's new order is well-captured in Henry VIII and the Barber Surgeons (begun 1541-3) (by Hans Holbein the Younger and Workshop). This painting commemorates the union of the Company of Barbers with the Guild of Surgeons. It seems to be a standard group painting until you notice the mixture of expressions - fear, sycophancy, uncertainty, complacency - that flow across the faces of the Barber Surgeons. They're the expressions of any group honouring a tyrant at any time. We can regard them as forerunners of the desperate hangers-on at the rallies or party congresses of more recent times wondering if - or when - they'll fall disastrously and irrevocably from favour. Holbein shows Henry's queen Jane Seymour (1536-7?) as thoughtful, realising the need to keep her head down if she's to retain it, (some might discern a feeling of resentment at her role of being royal breeder to maintain the Tudor dynasty but it would probably be unwise to read such a modern sentiment into her expression.). The product of her marriage to Henry is shown in Edward, Prince of Wales (1538). Here the boy doomed to a short reign is dressed as an adult monarch. He holds a child's rattle-like sceptre. But he already seems to have his father's cold eyes whilst his skin is pale, a suggestion of sickness.

With the changes that Henry VIII would bring to the religious landscape of England, it's appropriate that three of Holbein's simplest but most outstanding drawings hint at the beginnings of the religious turmoil that was already in progress and which would affect the English for the next two centuries: and, arguably leave its mark on the national psyche about not only religion but the transient nature of all belief-systems and hierarchies. Bishop John Fisher (c.1532-4) shows the one prelate prepared to defend Catholicism against the king with an austere, skull-like head, hinting at his sense of horror at the coming changes in religion. St. Andrew carrying the cross (dated 1527) grimaces with determination at what he seems to regard as a necessary job of work rather than as a part of his death. St. Thomas (1527) shows the apostle's mouth curving down either in scepticism at the other apostles' assertion of Christ's resurrection, or in shocked sadness at the confounding of his own doubt of it.

It was ironic that Holbein - who died in 1543 - introduced the latest painting techniques of the Renaissance into England when the Reformation would effectively cut this country off from later artistic developments on the Continent. The baroque would be regarded as tainted with popery. But this exhibition isn't valuable for simply reminding us that there's a puritanical suspicion of art which constantly inhabits and inhibits the national mentality. The power of drawing and painting when depicting human personality close-up is ever more necessary in today's culture of fame-and-money-seeking pseudo-shock art along with - and sometimes allied to - slick presentation of personalities by skilful PR. Life classes have been abandoned throughout many art schools in the name of - ironically - 'creativity', not forgetting puritanical posturings about the 'male gaze'. Holbein's work reminds us that artists need - in every sense - to get back to the drawing board.

Till 7 January 2007.