Thankyou so much for that. It is fascinating to see the techiniques used to find the true images of so many prolific people in history to be used to find the “real” likeness of our Anne. I did a little bit of archaeology at uni before art history, and i really love the techniques used to put a more scientific and methodical practice behind answering histories big questions. I appreciate that it is more of a definative way of identifying her fabled beauty (or hideousness, dependent on who you believe), rather than the constant debate of those whom have done ‘paper’ research. There are clear descrepancies between the portraits of Anne, and those believed to have been of Anne, and that would be due to artistic licence, but this stage of history, ie Tudor times, there was still alot of lack of perspective within painting and especially portrait painting. In Florence, the rennaisance was going strong, and painters had discovered how to foreshorten, to make people look more three dimensional, until this great artistic period, people were portrayed, head from the side, torso from the front, arms to the sides, legs to the sides, kind of like in ancient egypt, and like in ancient greece. The rennaisance brought many different idealogies to art, and began the great idea of art for arts sake, not just sacred but secular. Artists gained patronage from wealthy families, not just the church and people in power, the Medicis changed the world by teaching artists in a college like fashion rather than as a trade like apprenticship, and ideas began to flow. Artists such as Holbien lived within the courts of great families, and had a lifetime contract like relationship with their patrons, and because of that, their style would develop to suit the needs and indeed the personalities of the Patrons. It was also dependent on the ‘fashions’ of the time and place. Looking at portraits of Henry’s wives, you can see that the way the ladies hold their faces is quite consistent, there is a pursing of the lips, that to us in our day and age looks prudish and unnatural, which somewhat reflects the roman catholic idea of virginity and purity. Anne’s portraits have a clear difference in the mouth, there is almost the detection of a smile on her lips, something a little bit demure and ironic given the time. We know that there was supposedly a favouring of women with fair hair and blue eyes at this time, and that Anne was said to be an unusual looking woman as far as fashion was concerned. Her dark hair and eyes are clearly visible in the portraits attributed to her, but it is very sad that there are so few portraits and likenesses of her, as there were of many people, as having a portrait done was something of an extravagance. I have read that portraits were destroyed, due to the nature of the breakdown of the marriage between Anne and Henry, but they were in a ‘relationship’ for many years, and therefore Henry would have bestowed much extravagance towards his dark haired mistress, who knows how many portraits there were originally. There are far more portraits of Anne that were painted after her death, during the reign of her daughter especially, my favourite pictures of Anne are those prints done to accompany Shakespeares Henry the 8th, they are beautifully naive and far more ornate. They are more expressive and detailed in the ‘scene’ they portray, the characters are poised in position according to the scene, one of my favourites is a picture of Herny and Anne in the foreground, Wolsey sits by the throne, and Kathryn sits on her chair in the background, seemingly unaware of her husband and Anne and their relationship. There is something more classical and less gothic looking about these pictures, the contemporary pictures of Anne, especially after Elizabeths reign, portrayed her as more of a beauty than a villian, carefree and happy. Looking at the many portraits of Elizabeth, even in her old age, you can see the similarities between she and her mother, and those between Elizabeth and Henry. The red hair, plain and pale long face and nose, dark eyes and vacant yet intense stare. You cannot help but wonder looking at these portraits whether the artists would have had related their ideas of Anne into their depictions of Elizabeth.
Anyway i have harped on for far too long now. Thankyou so much for your link, it was very interesting and helpful. Thanks heaps to whomever actually reads my blah blah. Tash.