Holbein painted Edward VI.
standing, so to speak, in a vacuum.

Every line of his face is sharply defined.

In real life air softens all lines, so that even the edge of a nose in profile is not actually seen as a sharp outline.

The figures in Richard II.'s picture stand in the most exhausted vacuum, but Hubert van Eyck had already begun to render the vision or illusion of air in his 'Three Maries.' In this respect he had learnt more than the early painters of the Italian Renaissance; but Raphael and the Venetians, especially Giorgione and Titian, sometimes bathed their figures in a luminous golden atmosphere with the sun shining through it.
The Dutch painters carried this still further, particularly in their pictures of interiors and landscapes.

It is the atmosphere in the rooms that makes Peter de Hoogh's portrayal of interiors so wonderful.