Download: http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/guimera-3470094-art-detail-ambassadors-holbein-hans-younger/

3. A paean to two scholar-diplomats and to the artist's virtuosity.
A reminder of the brevity of life and of the vanity of human accomplishments.
... While life is short, art is long-lasting - but eternity endures for ever.

4. Art in Detail
HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger
The Ambassadors

7. HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger
The Ambassadors
1533
National Gallery, London

8. Jean de Dinteville, French Ambassador to the court of Henry VIII of England
Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur
On the left Jean de Dinteville, aged 29. To the right stands his friend, Georges de Selve, aged 25.
In their attire, their poses and their bearing the two friends exemplify the active and the contemplative life
... together, complement each other

11. Jean de Dinteville, a French nobleman, Ambassador to the court of Henry VIII of England
Whit great worldly pomp: an opulent, fur-lined coat and decorated with the Order of St. Michael.
The ornate sheath of the dagger gives his age as 29.

15. The Order of Saint Michael was a French chivalric order, founded by Louis XI of France on 1 August 1469.

16. age Dinteville

21. A skull in the band of Jean de Dinteville's cap: the quintessential memento mori, reminder of mortality.

22. Georges de Selve, a brilliant French scholar, diplomat and ecclesiastic, Bishop of Lavaur.
Sent by King Francis I of France as ambassador to the Republic of Venice, Austria, to the Pope in Rome,
to England, Germany and Spain.
He leans his elbow on a book inscribed with his age: 25.

27. age Selve

28. Two wealthy, educated and powerful young menwith books and instruments:
Upper shelf
the upper shelf shows a carpet oriental, a celestial globe and an array of astronomical and navigational instruments

30. Holbein Carpet

31. the Celestial Globe

34. Shepard Dial

35. Universal Equinoctial Dial

36. Polyhedral Sundial

37. The torquetum or turquet, a medieval astronomical instrument to take and convert measurements made in three sets of coordinates: Horizon, equatorial, and ecliptic.

39. Two wealthy, educated and powerful young menwith books and instruments:
Lower shelf
the lower shelf shows a terrestrial globe, a lute, a Lutheran hymn book, an arithmetic book, dividers, and a bag of wooden flutes.

42. Terrestrial Globe.

43. Europe on the Terrestrial Globe

44. ... the word Polisy can be made out, the place where Jean de Dinteville had his "seigneurie“.

46. Lute Pegbox

47. Broken Lute String, a Symbol of Discord

49. The hymnal is open at Martin Luther's hymn,'Come Holy Ghost our souls inspire'. Christian faith offers hope of eternal life when dust returns to dust.

51. Arithmetic Book: German text-book of Arithmetic for Merchants, propped open with a T-square.

53. A bag with wooden flutes, one of the flutes juts out from the rest

54. ... just visible in the top left corner
Crucifix
at the edge of the magnificently patterned green hanging

58. ... across the mosaic floor - derived from the medieval pavement in Westminster Abbey - there spreads a curious shape between the two friends:
Anamorphic Skull
"memento mori" ... skull, a symbol of mortality
The true form the distorted image can only be perceived from the correct viewpoint at the edges of the panel

64. Art in Detail-The Ambassadors-by Holbein, Hans the Younger
images and text credit www.
Music wav.
created olga.e.
thanks for watching
oes