Art in Renaissance England

Renaissance and Reformation · 2023-04-22

The literature on the visual arts in the English Renaissance, which largely tracks the reigns of the Tudor and Jacobean monarchs, was, until the 1990s, heavily focused on portraiture. An important and comprehensive catalogue of Tudor portraits in the National Portrait Gallery was produced by Roy Strong (Strong 1969b, cited under Portraiture). The Tudor period was traditionally treated by art historians as a prologue to an identifiable British style that emerged only in the seventeenth, and even eighteenth, century. Gradually, a new generation of scholars began producing close examinations of different media: architecture, tapestries, funeral monuments, portrait miniatures, and gardens, as well as a wider range of paintings and portraits, extending to those of the middle classes. These examinations were rooted in documentary evidence and enlivened especially the study of the visual arts in the reign of Henry VIII. Milestone anniversaries, such as the five hundredth anniversary of Henry VIII’s birth, in 1991, and the quincentenary anniversary of his accession to the throne, celebrated in 2009, contributed to a growing number of scholarly monographs, exhibitions and their catalogues, and edited volumes based on academic conferences devoted to the study of Tudor visual art. This field has taken the lead in technical analysis of works of art. The five-year Making Art in Tudor Britain project, led by Tarnya Cooper, then at the National Portrait Gallery in London, pioneered the focused study and comparative findings of more than one hundred English Renaissance paintings through the use of the latest technologies.

Timothy Schroder. “A Marvel to Behold”: Gold and Silver at the Court of Henry VIII. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2020. Pp. 398. $80.00 (cloth).

Journal of British Studies · 2022

• Art
• History
• Art history

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: <i>The Elizabethan Image: An Introduction to English Portraiture (1558–1603)</i>

Renaissance Quarterly · 2021 · 1 citations

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Art

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Problems of identity in an age of change: the viewer of art in Renaissance England

2019-06-04

This chapter examines the codes of language and imagery employed by Henry VIII’s advisers in the 1530s as the English Reformation and Royal Supremacy over the Church in England were implemented. By investigating the works of art commissioned, it is possible to see how carefully constructed the messages were and how specific viewers were targeted. In this way, the intended viewers of English Renaissance art are identified. An exploration of the question of identity—understood in terms of the relationship anticipated between the sponsors of images and those whom they wished to influence—is very useful in delineating both the potential and the limitations of art as a medium of political indoctrination in early Tudor England. A concern with ‘identity’ rather than ‘Henrician propaganda’ allows one to embark on a far more nuanced and productive investigation of the public roles of art.

Art and Communication in the Reign of Henry VIII

2017-07-05 · 6 citations

"Exploring the intersection between art and political ideology, this innovative study of art in Henrician England sheds new light on the ways in which Henry VIII and his advisers exploited visual images in order to communicate ideas to his subjects. The works analyzed include water triumphs, coronation pageants and funeral processions, printed title pages of vernacular Bibles, coins, portrait miniatures, and murals, as well as panel paintings." "With her analysis of these categories of objects, and using communication theory as a starting point, String presents a new model of communication based on the concepts of magnificence, topicality, persuasiveness, and propaganda. Using the art of Henry VIII's reign as a case study, String enriches our understanding of the fundamental contribution of imagery to communication, and also provides a model for the study of the dissemination of ideas and the patron-artist relationship in other royal courts and historical periods."--BOOK JACKET.

Holbein and the Artistic Mise-en-Scène of The Tudors

Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks · 2016-01-01

The Tudors would not be the Tudors without the constant presence of the visual arts: paintings, drawings, tapestries, buildings, and artists take on significant roles, both in the plotting and in the mise-en-scène and art direction of the series. From the heavy staging to create period ambience, to the place of portraiture in the building of characters’ identities, to the status of the artist at court, The Tudors meditates on art in often precise, frequently fanciful but consistently important ways. This chapter will explore the various modes in which The Tudors deploys the visual arts to contribute to the sense of place and time, and, importantly, the manner in which specific works of art by Hans Holbein the Younger, and indeed the artist himself, are integral to the series’ narrative arc.

Painting in Britain 1500–1630: production, influences, and patronage Edited by Tarnya Cooper , Aviva Burnstock , Maurice Howard , Edward Town . Oxford: Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2015 420 p. ill. ISBN 9780197265840. £150.00 / $250.00 (Hardcover)

Art Libraries Journal · 2016-09-20

Painting in Britain 1500–1630: production, influences, and patronage Edited by Tarnya Cooper , Aviva Burnstock , Maurice Howard , Edward Town . Oxford: Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2015 420 p. ill. ISBN 9780197265840. £150.00 / $250.00 (Hardcover) - Volume 41 Issue 4

: <i>The Inventory of King Henry VIII: Textiles and Dress</i>

Renaissance Quarterly · 2013-12-01

Maria Hayward. and Philip Ward., eds. The Inventory of King Henry VIII: Textiles and Dress. Vol. 2. Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London 75. London: Harvey Miller Publishers for the Society of Antiquaries of London, 2012. xvii + 366 pp. €140. ISBN: 978–1–905375–42–4. - Volume 66 Issue 4

: <i>Beard Fetish in Early Modern England: Sex, Gender, and Registers of Value</i>

Renaissance Quarterly · 2012-09-01

Mark Albert Johnston. Beard Fetish in Early Modern England: Sex, Gender, and Registers of Value. Women and Gender in the Early Modern World. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2011. xii + 300 pp. $104.95. ISBN: 978–1–4094–0542–9. - Volume 65 Issue 3

Myth and Memory in Representations of Henry VIII, 1509–2009

British Academy eBooks · 2011-12-22 · 2 citations

This chapter explores a portrait of King Henry VIII that has played a key role in sustaining and inflecting received notions of the Tudor age in the post-Tudor period. It argues that almost without exception the Tudorist visual representations of King Henry VIII from the mid-sixteenth to the twenty-first century derive their communicative force from, and were indeed only made possible because of, the existence of an extraordinarily compelling and efficacious point of origin. The portrait of Henry VIII that set this cascade of information, ideas, and associations about the king in motion was the full-length portrait from the Whitehall Mural, painted by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543) in 1537.