The Ambassadors Analyst
Hans Holbein is one of the most accomplished portraitists and artists of the 16th century. While he spent two periods of his life in England (1526-8 and 1532-43), he was portraying the nobility of the Tudor court. Holbein's famous portrait is called The Ambassadors, is located at the London, National Portrait Gallery. Holbein the creator of The Ambassadors did a nice piece of art. The man on the left side of the picture is Jean de Dinteville, a French Ambassador to the court of Henry VIII. The other man, on the right, is his childhood friend Georges de Selve. Selve, the Bishop of Lavaur, came to stay with him while on some sort of official business in London. Dinteville is dressed in a big, black, and puffy coat with fur trim. Black
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The most important aspect of this art work is the extraordinary anamorphosis skull. Anamorphosis is a way or a technique of distorting an image. The image is distorted that it looks correct only when viewed from a special angle or with a mirror that counters distortion. In The Ambassadors, the skull could only be seen when the viewer looks down at it from the upper right corner. Skulls usually represent death, fear, or some kinds of disasters. However, this specific skull and the way it was painted represents a totally different thing.
The skull is an interesting feature because it is different than the rest of the painting. The painting seems very realistic and life like but the skull adds a strange feature. The skull was not even noticeable until I read the description of the painting. When I looked at the skull from a straight angle I saw a blurry image on the bottom and thought it was maybe a glitch from my computer. The most interesting part is the sense of mystery behind the skull, no body truly knows what the skull