Fool biography

"The history of the English throne in the age of the Tudors is rife with intrigue, persecution, war, and paranoia.
The first biography of Henry VIII's court fool William Somer, a legendary entertainer and one of the most intriguing figures of the Tudor age.
Artist 'The Fool', born in 1959, began his journey as a full-time artist at the age of 60.

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Fool by Peter K. Andersson review

Was there anything, aside from consanguinity, that united the Tudor dynasty as it lurched back and forth from Catholicism to Protestantism across the middle decades of the 16th century? One answer to that question, surprisingly, was a man named William Somer, Henry VIII’s last and best-loved fool. It is not simply because surviving court accounts reveal the cares taken on Somer’s behalf by succeeding monarchs. It is also because, remarkably, he appears in five portraits with them – all but one family groupings – across four reigns. One portrait might be an anomaly; five over 50 years surely represents a statement.

As Peter K. Andersson writes in Fool: In Search of Henry VIII’s Closest Man, the first full length study of Somer’s life and posthumous mythos, Somer appears to have been ‘a good luck charm for the Tudor dynasty’. But his presence in the paintings still raises more questions than it answers.

Somer first appears on the record on 28 June 1535 in an entry in the royal wardrobe accounts for two doublets, two coats and a cap. Ander

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Artist ‘The Fool’, born in 1959, began his journey as a full-time artist at the age of 60. This transformative odyssey was ignited by a simple query posed by his daughter: "How about you start drawing the pictures that you truly love?" This question served as the pivotal catalyst that ushered him into the realm of art and made him the artist that he is today.

The Fool possessed a love for drawing even in his youth. In his childhood, a painter uncle served as his main source of inspiration. However, without adequate encouragement and nurturing of his artistic inclinations, he set aside the brush for a more conventional life. Yet his love remained and, after a lifetime of regret, it was the allure of “cobalt blue” that rekindled the artist within him and summoned him back to the canvas.

His first attempts at artistic expression employed an array of tools, ranging from traditional brushes to even harnessing the forces of the wind. However, nothing seemed to suit him until he discovered the gratification of manipulating paint to trace lines.

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The Fool (tarot card)

Tarot card of the Major Arcana

The Fool is one of the 78 cards in a tarot deck. Traditionally, it is the lowest of the 22 trump cards, in tarot card reading called the 22 Major Arcana. However, in tarot card games it developed to be not one of the (then 21) trump cards but a special card, serving a unique purpose by itself. In later Central European tarot card games, it re-developed to now become the highest trump. As a consequence and with respect to his unique history, The Fool is usually an unnumbered card with a unique design; but sometimes it is numbered as 0 (the first) or more rarely XXII (the last). Design and numbering-or-not to not clearly indicate its role as a trump or special card in the specific game.^{[citation needed]}

Iconography

Standard allegories of Foolishness, painted by Giotto (1306, left) and Quentin Matsys (ca. 1510). The Fools in the earliest surviving painted decks resemble these depictions.

The Fool is titled Le Mat in the Tarot of Marseilles, and Il Matto in most Italian language tarot d