Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance, National Gallery

Strange Beauty - the National Gallery’s latest exhibition - invites you to gasp at the works of the German Renaissance’s finest artists. It’s the jewel in the crown of ‘Renaissance Spring’ season at the National Gallery, which sees a host of renaissance-themed exhibitions and events between now and the end of the year –the perfect escape from drab rainy Spring weather.  

Strange Beauty features works by Hans Holbein the Younger, most famous for his iconic portraits of Henry VIII, his courtiers and his wives; examples of the intricate prints that helped establish the reputation of Albrecht Dürer across Europe; and pieces by Lucas Cranach the Elder, whose great talent was to make the grotesque beautiful through sheer skill – though perhaps, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you’ll disagree.

The exhibition also shines a light on the dogmatic ideals of beauty that shaped national collections here in the UK, tracing how 16th century admiration for many artists’ techniques and inventiveness turned lukewarm in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Fascinating, rarely-displayed documents from the National Gallery’s archives show how some in the British art world considered these German works downright ugly compared to those of Italian Renaissance artists: prejudices which were exacerbated by the First and Second World Wars. Is the mood shifting now? You’ll be the judge of that in the exhibition’s final room, which attempts to gauge visitors’ reactions.

The show is worth a visit for the reconstruction of the Liesborn altarpiece alone. Created some time after 1465, it was cut into pieces and scattered across the world in 1803 when the monasteries were suppressed. Now, for the first time, visitors will be able to see what it once looked like – a rare treat. If that isn’t enough to tempt you, those of you who paid attention at school will enjoy Holbein’s miniature of Anne of Cleves, who was briefly Henry VIII’s fourth wife, and whom he famously found less attractive than her portrait… strange beauty indeed.