National Gallery Page #5

Remember to keep

looking around you.

Always look around. Be careful, though.

Let's go nice and slowly, don't run.

I don't want you to fall over.

It doesn't have a magic carpet next to it,

but it is the painting.

Please, have a seat.

So this is the story of Moses.

It's the story about how a little baby boy

is sent down the river

and then picked up again,

given to the princess,

who gives it back to the mother,

and he grows up to be an amazing

and fantastic person.

Now, if you like the story of Moses, you

might like to see more stories about Moses.

And there are lots of other storm

about Moses in the National Gallery.

But if you think to yourself,

"I've had it up to here with Moses,

"I'm sick of Moses,

I want to see somebody else,"

there's lots of other stories you might wanna

learn about in the National Gallery.

There are people writing.

There are people eating

and being surprised.

There are people -

you might not believe this -

there's an old man over there

who's being fed by ravens.

There's a raven, a little black bird,

that's giving him his food.

All these amazing stories

in National Gallery paintings for you to see.

This is a portrait

which was commissioned by Henry

lo fulfill another one

of his demands, really,

to, as I say, to son of almost

meet Christina by proxy

through the medium of the portrait,

so that he could decide

whether he wanted to marry her.

So Holbein is dispatched to Brussels

in March 1538.

This is following the death of Henry VIII's

third wife, Jane Seymour.

And Henry is sort of desperately trying

to identify a suitable fourth wife.

Holbein arrives, Hans Holbein,

sent by the King of England,

to paint a portrait

on the understanding

that if it satisfies the King,

she's then going to go over to London

and become the Queen of England.

Henry is said to have fallen in love with it,

and to have been very, very keen

to arrange the marriage.

But that doesn't happen.

There's an anecdotal statement-

we don't know whether this is true -

that Christina herself

said to the English envoy,

"if I had two heads, one should be

at the disposal of the King of England."

So it seems that she herself had a sense

that this wouldn't necessarily

be a good match for her.

And, ultimately, Henry gave up.

This is a very sort of simple picture

in its composition.

The sort of frontal pose

is very deliberate here,

so that Henry could actually sort of see

exactly what she looked like,

no sort of profile view that's hiding

any blemishes or imperfections.

But the use of light

across the features, again,

is very, very subtle

and carefully modulated

so that there's a hint of an expression,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes