 |
| Hans Holbein The Ambassadors (Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve) 1533 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
The Crucifix and the Skull
If no more than a brief look is given to this picture, the viewer is bound to miss the silver crucifix painted in profile in the upper left corner, half hidden by the magnificent draperies. Once this detail has been spotted, it is as if we are confronted with a theater curtain behind which another scene is concealed, or at least as if we are peeping into the wings. The splendid arrangement of objects, no less than the two ambassadors themselves, then appear to be elements in a masque. The impeccable layout seems not quite so assured, the composure on the faces of the two men not quite so complete; the poses may not have been assumed quite so unselfconsciously as we first thought, or more accurately as we would have first thought without the presence of that enigmatic object thrust toward us from another world.
Even though the two dignitaries and the whole collection of accompanying paraphernalia are equally immersed in a datable past, that alien thing with its grimacing curves appears to exist in the beam of a projector off to the right. If we position ourselves on that side of the painting, as close as possible to the frame and the wall, we can perceive that the "thing" is a skull, systematically distorted and only recognizable from this one angle – a spectre so troubling as to have been initially unnamable.
The Lurking Menace
Now, in the year 1533, the date when King Henry VIII was excommunicated by Pope Clement VII, there were good reasons to be haunted by fear. Death was already casting its shadow over Holbein's protectors, Thomas More and John Fisher, disgraced for remaining Catholic after the Anglican Schism, abruptly deprived of royal favor and honors, and before long to be executed.
Thinly disguised, death lurked everywhere: in the whims of the great, in popular rebellions, in religious controversies, as well as in the pestilence that spread unchecked through the streets – including the plague that would kill Holbein in 1543. The dance of death threatened every class, and no level of privilege could resist it.
– translated and adapted from Le Musée imaginaire de Michel Butor: 105 œuvres décisives de la peinture occidentale (Paris: Flammarion, 2019)