The Story
Desiderius Erasmus was the most popular, most printed and arguably most influential author of the early Sixteenth Century, read in all nations in the West and frequently translated. By the 1530s, the writings of Erasmus accounted for 10 to 20 percent of all book sales in Europe. " His vast number of Latin and Greek publications included translations, paraphrases, letters, textbooks, plays for schoolboys, commentary, poems, liturgies, satires, sermons, and prayers.
He is noted for his extensive scholarly editions of the New Testament and the complete works of numerous Church Fathers. A large number of his later works were defences of his earlier work from attacks by Catholic and Protestant theological and literary opponents. His work was at the forefront of the contemporary Catholic Reformation and advocated a spiritual reform program he called the "philosophia Christi" and a theological reform agenda he called the Method of True Theology.
Executed in woodcut, measuring Unknown, the surface rewards close looking. Hans Holbein the Younger builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
