Among the "early works" of the Amerbach Catalogue there is one which
shows strong traces of Leonardo's and even more of Mantegna's influence
on him at this time. It is a Last Supper, painted in oils on wood. But
it was so mutilated in the iconoclastic fury of 1529, and has been so
cobbled, re-broken, re-set, and "restored" generally, that it can no
longer be called Holbein's work without many reservations. There is also
another Last Supper, one of a coarsely painted set on canvas, which
is attributed to him on much more doubtful grounds, to judge by the
composition and colouring. Myself I should be inclined to see the
inferior hand of Ambrose, Hans the elder, or perhaps even Sigmund
Holbein in these, if they are genuine Holbein works at all.
But there are still to be seen the traces of his own hand and mind in
the Last Supper in oils on wood. St. John's head must originally have
been very beautiful; very manly, too,--dark with sudden anguish and
recoil. There is a separate head of St. John, in oils, in the same
collection, which shows how fixed was this noble originality of type in
Holbein's conception of "the beloved apostle." But it is in Judas that
the patient student will find, perhaps, most of Holbein's peculiar cast
of thought, when once the initial repulsion is overcome.
By a very natural arrangement he is brought into the immediate foreground
and sits there, already isolated, already damned, in such a torment
of body and soul as haunts the spectator who has had the courage to
reconsider the dictum of authorities who call him "a Jew of frightful
vulgarity." Frightful he may be; but it is a strange judgment which can
find him vulgar. Unfortunately, the painting is no longer in a condition
to justify reproduction; but such as study this yellow-robed, emaciated,
shivering, fever-consumed Judas will, I venture to assert, find food for
thought in it even under all the injuries the work has undergone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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