I mean, it could be Chaz and Dave standing there.
They could be just friends in a pub, just hanging out.
It's kind of the most perfect painting.
We stepped into the room with The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein.
It literally takes you back,
like you've got to take a step back.
You walk up to the painting and you're still flabbergasted.
It's so grandiose, so monumental.
But then you can also go and relish every single detail.
The painter is telling you that you do not see what this painting is really about.
My name is Emma Capron and I'm
the Associate Curator for Renaissance Painting at the National Gallery.
So this is the portrait of Jean de Dinteville
and Georges de Selve,
better known as The Ambassadors. It was painted by the German artist Hans Holbein in 1533.
Jean de Dinteville came from a prominent
French noble family, very close to King Francis I.
Georges de Selve was a cleric.
He was Bishop of Lavaur in southwest France and he too was a diplomat.
My name is Dr Onyeka Nubia and I am a lecturer in history.
This is a very important painting because of its time.
It was created in 1533.
This is a time when Europe was going through momentous changes.
It's just before England went through Reformation.
Henry VIII wanted to marry again - he was already married,
but he wanted to marry again - and he wanted to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon.
These noblemen had been sent by Francis I,
working in the interests of Francis I, and attempting,
by whatever means, to try and keep Henry VIII within the established Church,
or at least to monitor what activities were taking place in England.
Ambassadors in this period of time often doubled as spies.
The relationship between the two men we don't know much about.
What we do know from Jean de Dinteville's letters
is that he was quite miserable in England.
He does mention in his letter how wonderful it was to have George visit him.
I think the painting is the most
impressive testament to the nature of their relationship.
They clearly were keen to memorialise
their friendship in the grandest manner possible.
My name is Alex Lee.
I'm an artist and a designer.
I was invited to contribute to the Offcut Project, which was a collection of artists
invited to create screen prints in response to the pandemic.
I realised what I wanted to talk about was
the distance between people and as soon as I thought of The Ambassadors and just
pushing them apart, what that might mean in terms of
a simple graphic image.
The more I worked on it, the more I got interested in
Jean and Georges.
Some people think that they
are a couple, which just makes it even
more interesting if that if that is true, if one of the most famous
paintings in the world is of a same sex couple, how fantastic is that?
They seem to represent a traditional
perspective of the early modern period that is actually quite male,
actually quite Eurocentric, and only embodies a part
of the early modern period because, of course, early modern Europe was populated
by a diverse set of peoples.
Of course, it included 50 percent women.
But you wouldn't know it necessarily by seeing this image.
It also included an ethnically diverse group of people, that we also wouldn't
necessarily recognise by just looking at images such as this.
I'm Hey Reilly, I'm a digital artist,
graphic designer and art director.
Holbein is an absolute master of faces, right?
That genius means we instantly see them as real people.
I see two blokes performing a sort of bored, rich nonchalance.
Slouching, leaning, with all their stuff out on show -
like "oh, this rug?"
Basically, they're posing like these Tudor influencers, right?
The objects that are depicted with such care
on the piece of furniture between the two sitters
do not only speak to their wealth and learning, but also probably convey,
are meant to convey, a commentary on the turmoil of the time.
I'm Dr Louise Devoy and I'm Senior Curator of the Royal Observatory.
I think Holbein's Ambassadors is probably one of the best known and best loved
examples of scientific instruments in paintings.
It's a bit like looking into a shop window
of astronomy technology from the early 16th century.
So on the left, you've got this gorgeous
celestial globe with all the stars marked out in gold.
In the middle you've got a whole array of sundials.
And then on the far right you've got this
slightly weird disc-shaped instrument called a torquetum.
And this is essentially like a calculator.
What we're looking at is a really powerful
statement about the wealth, the education and the sophistication of these two men.
There are interestingly,
slight inaccuracies in the way these objects are either depicted or in the way
they are calibrated. Potentially, and more compellingly.
they are meant to convey the idea that time
might be out of joint because the world is going through so many upheavals.
This sentiment, this feeling, is actually reinforced
if one looks at the other sets of objects that are displayed on the lower shelf.
Hi, my name is Dami and I am a Young Producer at the National Gallery.
So on the lute, I believe one of the strings is broken,
obviously talking about the division going on between the Catholic Church and Henry VIII.
And then I believe in the maths book as well,
I think the subject is division.
All that stuff they've got, like medieval gadgets for spies. You could spend
a lifetime getting into all these deeper meanings
they're all hinting at with their stuff placed just so.
I'm Andrew Bruce.
I'm one of the photographers at the National Gallery.
We photographed The Ambassadors in super high resolution.
The thing about this painting is it's kind
of the most perfect painting to see like this.
And there are so many details that I'd never fully appreciated
and then suddenly they are, like, filling the screen in front of me
and I'm amazed I never noticed them before.
I guess the most obvious of these subtle
little details is the crucifix in the top left hand corner.
I'm Elaine McLenachan and I was a set
decorator on Hilary Mantel's TV adaptation of Wolf Hall.
I remember being overwhelmed when I
discovered all of Holbein's work because they were perfect.
There were Henry VIII,
they were Thomas More, they were Thomas Cromwell.
Particularly The Ambassadors,
I do remember studying it in tremendous detail.
It was like a eureka moment.
Looking just at how things were crafted,
how they were made and the materials that were used.
The detail, the fine fur and the tiny gold leaf in the tassels.
But the same in the musical instruments and in the scientific instruments.
You've got that specific detail that actually is so authentic and so useful.
The most intriguing aspect of this
painting is the elongated strange shape that stretches across the pavement.
I didn't even see everything else and I was just like, what the hell is that?
You can only make sense of this object
basically if you go all the way to the right bottom of the picture.
And from this perspective,
the strange shape reveals itself to be a skull as a symbol of death, therefore.
Tudor special effects.
It sits like an unresolved Free Transform
layer in Photoshop, scaring the bejesus out of you.
I mean, what other painting actually
makes you need to move into the correct position to see the visual effect work?
That's power.
My name is Elliott Brown.
I was an A-level student.
I think it's just amazing that he's put it in there in this massive painting.
I've never seen anything like it in that tradition.
So it's quite exciting that it is there. I know in painting
there's this idea of the relationship
between obviously the artist who's creating something to be looked at,
but then there's the actual person, the viewer who has to look at it.
Holbein is clearly, like, he knows what he's doing because he's wired into that relationship.
And he's playing a game
there with the viewer, he's doing more than he has to do.
He was just paid to make someone look cool and he's doing all these other things.
And these types of distortion using, you know,
which meant that you could only make sense of from a particular perspective,
were called Anamorphosis.
My name's Mauro
and I am part of the Truly artistic collective from Torino, Italy: graffiti artists
who developed to become mural painters.
As as collective we've been working on anamorphic art for the past
12 years and this all started
when during a summer holiday, we visited the National Gallery,
and whilst we were taking in everything,
we stepped into the room with The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein.
We'd never seen anything like that.
And we said, wow, we want to do that too.
It wasn't just an illusion per se,
it was actually something that carried a message.
And that's what struck us.
Even if you stand close to these men, if you are
at their same, you know, level, you look death in the face, okay?
That's where it all started.
We were like, that painting was really, really cool.
Okay how do we do that, but like ten times bigger?
Let's tell a story ourselves.
Even now it's like, when I look at it sometimes
it's like, if I was to do that portrait,
what would I put in that?
Or even look at my Instagram pictures and think, okay,
what do I put in my Instagram pictures or where do I take my pictures even.
This is how they wanted to be seen.
How do I want to be seen?