Refine
Document Type
- Book (2)
- Part of a Book (1)
Has Fulltext
- yes (3)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (3) (remove)
Keywords
- Holbein, Hans (3) (remove)
Institute
"Hans Holbein. Portrait of an Unknown Man": So lautet der Titel der im Jahre 1996 erschienenen Monographie von Derek Wilson, einer der zahlreichen Neuerscheinungen zu Leben und Werk Hans Holbeins des Jüngeren (1497/98-1543), die mit Blick auf dessen 500. Geburtstag in den letzten Jahren publiziert worden sind. ...
A small, blind-tooled volume sits on a table covered in green baize: one clasp is open, the other is closed; and a slip of paper emerges from it reading 'Veritas odium parit' ('truth breeds hatred'). This detail occurs in the foreground of a portrait by Hans Holbein of a young man identified as the Cologne patrician Hermann von Wedigh III (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). A study of the physical features of the book and of the history of the brief text - actually an ancient and then Erasmian adage - leads to a new interpretation of the painting in the context of humanist friendship. The book is seen to be a multivalent simile for the work of art authored by the artist as well as for the sitter himself, raising questions about the implications for these of a medium that can be opened and closed. The half-open condition of the book is understood to reflect the complementary pressures of openness and closedness, accessibility and intimacy, that characterized the Renaissance republic of letters.