Last week we went to London in a school trip. So, in this entry I share the video that I had to do as a task related to it.
It was painted by Hans Holbein the young, and it is a
painting that belongs to the English Renaissance, to the period called
Cinquecento. The characters that appear in the painting are Jean de Dinteville, the French ambassador in Engalnd and Georges de Selve, his
friend and bishop. It is believed that the portrait was ordered by Jean de
Dinteville, which shows that by this time, people who had money and were not
necessarily members of a royal family, could also order portraits and
paintings.
The painting is full of symbolism. For example, some
of the instruments such as the shepard dial, the quadrant or the torquetum, are
pointing out dates or times that conclude on the 11th of April of
1533, the Good Friday of the year this painting was made. But the most
oustanding symbol is the skull, that is hidden. There is an anamorphosis, which
is something represented in a distorted perspective that forces the spectator
to use specific objects to be able to see it properly. In this case, the skull
is hidden in the front of the ambassadors, and you need a spoon to be able to
see it. The skull represents the fact that death comes for everyone and what
you have in the terrenal life won't be important in the celestial one.
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