The German artist depicts death that emerges in life – omnipresent, hidden in sight.
Key takeaways
- Holbein's ambassadors look like an ordinary 16th-century portrait, if not the illegible shapes that appear in the foreground.
- When viewed from a different angle in the lower right corner of the painting, the shape is revealed as a visualization of the phrase "memento mori" – a skull.
- However, being mindful of death, while it can help you make better choices in life, can also make you forget about the world around you; You cannot see two images at the same time.
At first glance, Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors appears to be a fairly simple 16th-century portrait. Two notable Europeans — the French diplomat in London — were shaped to their best. Dressed in peacock-like ceremonial attire, tall and proud, surrounded by precious objects, they indicated their status: Persian carpets and miniature globes showed that they were frequent travelers, while musical instruments and sundials indicated their interest in art and science.
According to the standards of genre used by Holbein and what we expect from the times in which he lived, there seems to be nothing particularly unusual about his photographs. That is, before you take a closer look at the foreground, you will find—in front of and on top of our ambassador and his belongings—a strange, slender object. Painted from a completely different angle from the rest of the painting, it is almost unrecognizable to the viewer, almost as if it were crashing into the composition from another dimension.
Ambassadors by Hans Holbein Jr., 1533 (Source: National Gallery/Public Domain/Wikipedia)
Ambassadors can see it inside London's National Gallery, which has a display room unlike any other. Most visitors do not admire the painting head-on, but squeeze it into the lower right corner. From this distorted point of view, the ambassador is no longer recognizable, but the shapes in the foreground are now clearly visible and representative. It turned out that the object was a human skull, sitting idly on the leg of the table, just between the two ambassadors.
YouTuber WorldScott shows Holbein's optical illusions at work. (Source: World Scott)
Art historians refer to this technique as anamorphic or distorted projection, which was popular during the Renaissance. The first artist to attempt to incorporate optical understanding into his art was Leonardo da Vinci, whose Atlantic Codex—a collection of sketches, blueprints, and essays—consisted of two familiar elongated drawings that, from a particular point of view, resembled a face and a face. Eye. The resulting images are an enticing combination of artistic technique and scientific knowledge that inspires future generations of painters.
In the 17th century, scientists such as Salomon de Caus and Jean François Niceron drew a mathematically constructed grid system that showed artists how to paint or draw anything from a deformed perspective. This proved to be particularly useful for churches and cathedrals. In 1690, the Church of San Ignazio commissioned Andrea Pozzo to create a painting that, from below, would make a flat ceiling look like a dome or vault. Today, street artists are continuing this tradition.
Hans Holbein and "memento mori"
But back to the ambassador. In Hans Holbein's case, the deformation interested him not in the basic scientific principles of the technique, but in the meaning it acquired when used in this way on this particular painting. Although the painter's life was sandwiched between the end of the Renaissance and the beginning of the Scientific Revolution, Protestant and Catholic religious beliefs still had a considerable influence on the Germanic art institutions where Holbein lived.
One such belief is the infamous term "memento mori", latin for "remember that you are dead". Although its origins can be traced back to Greek antiquity, this phrase developed along with the Christian faith it summarized. Monks and Bible scholars generally believe that being aware of your impending doom will make you behave like a better person. Since status, money, and power cannot follow you into the grave, the pursuits that lead to the satisfaction of these worldly desires should be ignored.
The skull in The Ambassador is a figurative of the proverb "memento mori". Hans Holbein successfully portrays the death that occurs in life: vague but omnipresent. Just as death can ambush us at our most unexpected moments, we can't see the skull in the painting either, though it's hidden in the obvious line of sight. It is only when we learn of its existence that we begin to adjust our horizons and re-evaluate what we have seen before. In the process, the painting acquires a completely different meaning.
Leonardo da Vinci is trying to deform. (Source: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan/Public Domain)
First, the presence of the skull reshapes our thinking about ambassadors and their exquisite utensils. Two new interpretations of images have emerged. On the one hand, the ambassadors—dressed in peacock-like ceremonial attire placed next to their possessions—looked rather indifferent, as if their attention was focused on wealth and influence rather than on what really mattered. On the other hand, one might argue that some of these pursuits, such as their love of art and science, are actually dispelling death — and their fear of death.
Considering that "memento mori" is the personal motto of one of Holbein's nannies, the second interpretation seems more appropriate. The ambassadors did not forget their own deaths, but remained aware of the inevitability of death. This realization humbles them and leads them to reassess their priorities. At the same time, the concept of death has diminished from an imminent threat to what looks like a stain on a window, or, in the eyes of a modern viewer, a stain on a lens.
The skull, and the way Hans Holbein painted it, speaks volumes about our relationship to death. While both the ambassador and the skull can be viewed from different angles, it is not possible to view both images at the same time. Conceptually, this means that while it may be helpful to pay attention to death, it can also make us forget about life as it unfolds around us. Whether Holbein intends to include his own critical views in "memento mori" is unclear. Still, it proves that you can view this stunning painting in many ways.
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