Lecturer: Mark Cottle
The Tudor court and its world are captured unforgettably by Hans Holbein under Henry VIII and Nicholas Hilliard under Elizabeth 1. Between them, these two artists transformed English art. Holbein set radically new standards in portraiture, in his hauntingly evocative drawings and his exquisite miniatures. Hilliard, in turn, effectively established the miniature – “England’s greatest contribution to the art of the Renaissance” (Sir Roy Strong) – as the art form, personal and public, which would last unchallenged until the arrival of photography in the 1840’s. Without these two artists, English art as a whole could be immeasurably the poorer
