Painting the faith

Tate Britain is currently showing a major exhibition, ‘Holbein in England’, which includes the artist’s work from 1526-8 — the period of his first visit — and from 1532 to his death in 1543.

Holbein is the best known of many emigre artists and craftsmen who made their way to England during the period of the Reformation.

His time here covered the crucial period of Henry VIII’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon (the ‘King’s Great Matter’) and his subsequent marriages first to Anne Boleyn, then Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves.

Reformation information

It is highly unusual (but very encouraging!) to find a major national gallery presenting information and study sessions on the Reformation in England. On November 11, Dr. Alan Morrison of Westminster University led an afternoon of lectures on ‘Reformation London’ — dealing first with the major events of the English Reformation, followed by a study of London’s links with developments in Europe — principally via Antwerp which was then the most important centre for English trade, especially the export of wool.

Holbein, who came from a family of artists working in Basel, had first visited London on the recommendation of the humanist scholar Erasmus as the guest of Sir Thomas More. However, by the time of his return in 1532, More had resigned as Lord Chancellor and fallen from power, and Holbein was forced to seek new patrons — frequently among the German merchants of the Hanseatic league, many of whom imported Lutheran books into England. Holbein’s first language was German, and the portraits suggest that he knew these men well.

Spiritual pilgrimage

It also appears that he himself had made a spiritual pilgrimage from humanism to at least a more biblically based position — a particularly interesting painting, made at about this time, is his ‘Allegory of the Old and New Law (now in the Scottish National Gallery), where the prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist point man away from the law, and death, to Christ and the resurrection.

In medieval times, when artists had been employed primarily by the Catholic church, individual portraits tended to be impassive, functional records of status and power. In contrast, Holbein shows us the character and beliefs of his sitters. His paintings have a new directness and honesty — these Tudor citizens ‘come alive’ because they look us straight in the eye. Holbein’s merchant portraits often contain symbols of faith — in one example, Hermann von Wedigh of Cologne looks intently at us across a table on which lies a small clasped book — possibly a Bible — with a piece of paper inscribed in Latin ‘truth breeds hatred’ — a quote from the Roman dramatist Terence, but also, in this period of religious strife, possibly a reference to Paul’s words in Galations 4.16: ‘Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?’

King’s new image

In the 1530s, Thomas Cromwell, ‘the hammer of the monks’, ordered icons from churches to be collected and burned on the streets in Smithfield and other areas of London. Yet, at the same time, it was he who realised the potential of Holbein’s portraiture, in his drive to present a new image of the King as a Protestant ruler and head of an English church which was now independent from Rome. Holbein single-handedly created the picture of Henry VIII which has become part of our national consciousness — broad-shouldered and confrontational, with feet planted firmly apart. Several versions of this famous image have pride of place in the present exhibition.

Protestant artists

As well as looking at the impact of the Reformation on existing ecclesiastical communities such as Westminster Abbey, the conference also highlighted a further interesting development. During Elizabeth’s reign, a new generation of artists began to arrive in England, as a result of religious conflicts and persecution in Europe. The Duke of Alva’s crushing of Antwerp’s rebellion against the Spanish occupation in 1567 was soon followed by the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of Huguenots in France in 1572.

Again, we owe many of our well-known historical images to this skilled community of Protestant refugees — for example, the famous ‘Ditchley Portrait’ of the Queen, now in the National Portrait Gallery, by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, who had escaped from Antwerp with his father in 1568 — and the Effigy on her tomb in Westminster Abbey by the Huguenot Maximilian Colt (or Poutrain). Thus, although England may have lost many art treasures to iconoclasm, a new tradition of portraiture was established by those Christians who, in leaving their homelands, had ‘made shipwreck of their outer estate to preserve their inner peace’.

Anne Roberts,
Snettisham Christian Fellowship

© Evangelicals Now - January 2007
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