The Eyes Have It | Defector

"The eyes got me. Sir Thomas More by Hans Holbein the Younger isn't the brightest, or the largest painting in its room-it might be the smallest-but it's easily the most striking. It called to me from the next room over at the Frick Collection in New York, where it's hung since that tasteful robber baron purchased it in 1912. Here is something that speaks to me in that insistent way that few paintings have."

"There are things that would draw the eye in a lesser work: Jonathan Lethem said, of the effect Holbein is able to pull off depicting that velvet, "that sleeve should be illegal." But it's the eyes that dominate. Of a rich grey that somehow resists being umbral, they are set in a lightly lined face that speaks to challenges met and still to come. If I knew nothing of Thomas More the person, I would see someone prepared to face an uncertain future."

Sir Thomas More sits in three-quarters profile, middle-aged, staring intently to the right, surrounded by earth tones, red velvet, black satin, and green drapery. He clutches a book and wears a wedding ring, signaling intellectual and domestic roles. Holbein renders texture and costume with arresting precision, but the grey, luminous eyes dominate, conveying experience, tiredness, and readiness for uncertainty. Thomas More combined roles as churchman, statesman, scholar, and martyr, opposing the Reformation and refusing Henry VIII's annulment, which led to his execution. The portrait collapses public deeds into an immediate, human presence.

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