Jean de Dinteville and
Georges de Selve (‘The
Ambassadors’)
Hans Holbein the
Younger, 1533
Copyright The National
Gallery, London
It is tempting to feel that
interactive artworks are
only a very recent
phenomenon. However,
when you stop to think
more carefully about
artwork from the past, you
soon realise that there are
examples that did require
their audience to do more
than simply taking up one
position in front of the
piece. The Ambassadors
by Hans Holbein appears
to be a portrait of two men
with a slightly strange
foreground. The
foreground only makes
sense when the painting is
viewed from the side and
a distorted skull is
revealed. The dimension
of time and the continual
certainty of death provide
a strange subtext to the
confident image of these
successful men