Holbein and Henry VIII: branding the King

Close your eyes and imagine Henry VIII: the chances are that you are summoning the image of the Tudor king created by Hans Holbein the Younger. The unprecedented success of Holbein's rebranding of Henry not only served as the centrepiece for a revoluntionary refoundation of the Tudor monarchy but it also cemented the king's position within popular culture memory. This course will examine Holbein's work in the context of unprecedented religious and political change and consider whether the artist's work contains clues as to contemporary criticism of the most famous Tudor king.