art of the 16th century English sculpture of the 16th century

1. The development of English sculpture

In the field of artistic sculpture in England in the first half of the XVI century, only Italians worked, and in the second - only Germans and Dutch. The most significant Italian sculptors of Henry VIII were named earlier. Vasari already praised them and mentioned their work in England. Pietro Torrezhani (1470–1528), Michelangelo's companion in teaching, who broke his nose, the author of the full life of a large, painted large terracotta relief depicting a kneeling saint. Jerome, in a museum in Seville, is an excellent follower of Donatello’s school and a master who, it is true, exaggerated reality, but not through Michelangelo’s glasses. He arrived in England in 1512 to erect the tombstone of King Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York at Westminster Abbey (1512–1519). Simple, true bronze images of the royal couple rest on a black marble sarcophagus adorned with gilded pilasters and enchanting with its vitality small bronze reliefs. A special loyalty to nature is distinguished in the same place by the bronze recumbent image of Margarita Richmond, also the work of Torrejani. The best example of his artistic terracotta in England is the noble tombstone of Dr. Jung at the Rolls Buildings in London (1516). Benedetto da Rovezzano and Giovanni Mayano, around 1520, unfortunately, Cardinal Walsei’s magnificent tombstone was not completed after his death on the orders of Henry VIII, completed for him.

A German-Dutch sculpture of the second half of the 16th century was also taken up in England by portals, fireplaces and mainly tombstones of the type that the Dutch school erected at that time throughout northern Europe. In particular, free-standing structures of various sorts of marble and alabaster in the form of a canopy with Corinthian columns embracing the sarcophagus were favored. There were also many wall tombs, for which weaving of curls was used to decorate. The figures of the dead on the plates of the sarcophagi show a certain desire for truth and elegance of execution, but at the same time rarely go beyond the superficial setting of forms. The best works of this genus include the luxurious tomb of the Lord and Lady Dacre (1595) in the old church in Chelsea, the calm and noble monument of Countess Gertford (died in 1563) in the cathedral in Salisbury and the monument of Radcliffe, Duke of Sussex in the church in Borgem Essex. The painted alabaster recumbent images of Sir Gilles Dobeny and his wife in Westminster Abbey date back to the first half of this period, and the lovely recumbent images of Lady Mildred Burley (died in 1588) and her daughter by the end of it. Of course, English hands took part in the more craft works of this kind, encountered in all English churches. The need to transfer to posterity images of the dead in plastic design was common in England, as well as the need to fix the features of the living with a brush on a plane; but only the most chosen could afford to attract visiting artists, the favorites of the nobility, to this work.