Lucas Cranach the Elder

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German: Lucas Cranach der Ältere German pronunciation: [ˈluːkas ˈkʁaːnax dɛɐ̯ ˈʔɛltəʁə], c. 1472 – 16 October 1553) was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both of German princes and those of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, whose cause he embraced with enthusiasm. He was a close friend of Martin Luther. Cranach also painted religious subjects, first in the Catholic tradition, and later trying to find new ways of conveying Lutheran religious concerns in art. He continued throughout his career to paint nude subjects drawn from mythology and religion.

Lucas Cranach The Elder
Lucas Cranach the Elder, portrait at age 77, c. 1550, by Lucas Cranach the Younger. Oil on panel, 67 × 49 cm. Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Born
Lucas Maler

c. 1472
Kronach, Holy Roman Empire
Died16 October 1553(1553-10-16) (aged 81)
Weimar, Holy Roman Empire
Known forPainting
MovementGerman Renaissance
Patron(s)The Electors of Saxony

Cranach had a large workshop and many of his works exist in different versions; his son Lucas Cranach the Younger and others continued to create versions of his father's works for decades after his death. He has been considered the most successful German artist of his time.[1]

He is commemorated in the liturgical calendars of the Episcopal and Lutheran churches.

Early life
Signature of Cranach the Elder from 1508 on: winged snake with ruby ring (as on painting of 1514)

He was born at Kronach in upper Franconia (now central Germany), probably in 1472. His exact date of birth is unknown. He learned the art of drawing from his father Hans Maler (his surname meaning "painter" and denoting his profession, not his ancestry, after the manner of the time and class).[2] His mother, with surname Hübner, died in 1491. Later, the name of his birthplace was used for his surname, another custom of the times. How Cranach was trained is not known, but it was probably with local south German masters, as with his contemporary Matthias Grünewald, who worked at Bamberg and Aschaffenburg (Bamberg is the capital of the diocese in which Kronach lies).[3] There are also suggestions that Cranach spent some time in Vienna around 1500.[2]

From 1504 to 1520 he lived in a house on the south west corner of the marketplace in Wittenberg.[4]

According to Gunderam (the tutor of Cranach's children), Cranach demonstrated his talents as a painter before the close of the 15th century. His work then drew the attention of Duke Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, known as Frederick the Wise, who attached Cranach to his court in 1504. The records of Wittenberg confirm Gunderam's statement to this extent: that Cranach's name appears for the first time in the public accounts on the 24 June 1504, when he drew 50 gulden for the salary of half a year, as pictor ducalis ("the duke's painter").[3] Cranach was to remain in the service of the Elector and his successors for the rest of his life, although he was able to undertake other work.[2]

Cranach married Barbara Brengbier, the daughter of a burgher of Gotha and also born there; she died at Wittenberg on 26 December 1540. Cranach later owned a house at Gotha,[3] but most likely he got to know Barbara near Wittenberg, where her family also owned a house, which later also belonged to Cranach.[2]

Career
Apollo and Diana, 1530
Portrait of Martin Luther, 1529

The first evidence of Cranach's skill as an artist comes in a picture dated 1504. Early in his career he was active in several branches of his profession: sometimes a decorative painter, more frequently producing portraits and altarpieces, woodcuts, engravings, and designing the coins for the electorate.[3]

Early in the days of his official employment he startled his master's courtiers by the realism with which he painted still life, game and antlers on the walls of the country palaces at Coburg and Locha; his pictures of deer and wild boar were considered striking, and the duke fostered his passion for this form of art by taking him out to the hunting field, where he sketched "his grace" running the stag, or Duke John sticking a boar.[3]

Before 1508 he had painted several altar-pieces for the Castle Church at Wittenberg in competition with Albrecht Dürer, Hans Burgkmair and others; the duke and his brother John were portrayed in various attitudes and a number of his best woodcuts and copper-plates were published.[3]

In 1509 Cranach went to the Netherlands, and painted the Emperor Maximilian and the boy who afterwards became Emperor Charles V. Until 1508 Cranach signed his works with his initials. In that year the elector gave him the winged snake as an emblem, or Kleinod, which superseded the initials on his pictures after that date.[3]

Portrait of Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, c. 1530–1535

Cranach was the court painter to the electors of Saxony in Wittenberg, an area in the heart of the emerging Protestant faith. His patrons were powerful supporters of Martin Luther, and Cranach used his art as a symbol of the new faith. Cranach made numerous portraits of Luther, and provided woodcut illustrations for Luther's German translation of the Bible.[5] Somewhat later the duke conferred on him the monopoly of the sale of medicines at Wittenberg, and a printer's patent with exclusive privileges as to copyright in Bibles. Cranach's presses were used by Martin Luther. His apothecary shop was open for centuries, and was only lost by fire in 1871.[3]

Cranach, like his patron, was friendly with the Protestant Reformers at a very early stage; yet it is difficult to fix the time of his first meeting with Martin Luther. The oldest reference to Cranach in Luther's correspondence dates from 1520. In a letter written from Worms in 1521, Luther calls him his "gossip", warmly alluding to his "Gevatterin", the artist's wife. Cranach first made an engraving of Luther in 1520, when Luther was an Augustinian friar; five years later, Luther renounced his religious vows, and Cranach was present as a witness at the betrothal festival of Luther and Katharina von Bora.[2] He was also godfather to their first child, Johannes "Hans" Luther, born 1526. In 1530 Luther lived at the citadel of Veste Coburg under the protection of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and his room is preserved there along with a painting of him. The Dukes became noted collectors of Cranach's work, some of which remains in the family collection at Callenberg Castle.

Portrait of Martin Luther, 1526, The Phoebus Foundation

The death in 1525 of the Elector Frederick the Wise and Elector John's in 1532 brought no change in Cranach's position; he remained a favourite with John Frederick I, under whom he twice (1531 and 1540) filled the office of burgomaster of Wittenberg.[3] In 1547, John Frederick was taken prisoner at the Battle of Mühlberg, and Wittenberg was besieged. As Cranach wrote from his house to the grand-master Albert, Duke of Prussia at Königsberg to tell him of John Frederick's capture, he showed his attachment by saying,[3]

I cannot conceal from your Grace that we have been robbed of our dear prince, who from his youth upwards has been a true prince to us, but God will help him out of prison, for the Kaiser is bold enough to revive the Papacy, which God will certainly not allow.[3]

Hunting near Hartenfels castle, 1540

During the siege Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, remembered Cranach from his childhood and summoned him to his camp at Pistritz. Cranach came, and begged on his knees for kind treatment for Elector John Frederick.[3]

Three years afterward, when all the dignitaries of the Empire met at Augsburg to receive commands from the emperor, and Titian came at Charles's bidding to paint King Philip II of Spain, John Frederick asked Cranach to visit the city; and here for a few months he stayed in the household of the captive elector, whom he afterward accompanied home in 1552.[3]

He died at age 81 on October 16, 1553, at Weimar, where the house in which he lived still stands in the marketplace.[1] He was buried in the Jacobsfriedhof in Weimar.

Den gylne tidsalder, Gullalderen (The Golden Age), 1530, National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design

Cranach had two sons, both artists: Hans Cranach, whose life is obscure and who died at Bologna in 1537; and Lucas Cranach the Younger, born in 1515, who died in 1586.[2] He also had three daughters. One of them was Barbara Cranach, who died in 1569, married Christian Brück (Pontanus), and was an ancestor of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

His granddaughter married Polykarp Leyser the Elder, thus making him an ancestor of the Polykarp Leyser family of theologians.

Veneration

The Lutheran Church remembers Cranach as a great Christian on April 6 along with Dürer,[6] and possibly Matthias Grünewald or Burgkmair.[7] The liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) honors Cranach, Dürer and Grünewald on August 5.

Works and art
Adam and Eve, woodcut, 1509
Study for portrait of Margaret of Pomerania (1518–1569), c. 1545, a drawing with all details of the sitter's costume meticulously described, was intended for the future reference and to facilitate the work on large number of commissions in the artist's atelier.

The oldest extant picture by Cranach is the Rest of the Virgin during the Flight into Egypt, of 1504. The painting already shows remarkable skill and grace, and the pine forest in the background shows a painter familiar with the mountain scenery of Thuringia. There is more forest gloom in landscapes of a later time.[3]

Following the huge international success of Dürer's prints, other German artists, much more than Italian ones, devoted their talents to woodcuts and engravings. This accounts for the comparative unproductiveness as painters of Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein the Younger, and also may explain why Cranach was not especially skilled at handling colour, light, and shade. Constant attention to contour and to black and white, as an engraver, seems to have affected his sight; and he often outlined shapes in black rather than employing modelling and chiaroscuro.[3]

The largest proportion of Cranach's output is of portraits, and it is chiefly thanks to him that we know what the German Reformers and their princely adherents looked like. He painted not only Martin Luther himself but also Luther's wife, mother and father. He also depicted leading Catholics like Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop elector of Mainz, Anthony Granvelle and the Duke of Alva.[3]

Crucifixion of Christ, 1503

A dozen likenesses of Frederick III and his brother John are dated 1532. It is characteristic of Cranach's prolific output, and a proof that he used a large workshop, that he received payment at Wittenberg in 1533 for "sixty pairs of portraits of the elector and his brother" on one day.[3] Inevitably the quality of such works is variable.

Religious subjects

Cranach's religious subjects reflect the development of the Protestant Reformation, and its attitudes to religious images. In his early career, he painted several Madonnas; his first woodcut (1505) represents the Virgin and three saints in prayer before a crucifix. Later on he painted the marriage of St. Catherine, a series of martyrdoms, and scenes from the Passion.[3]

After 1517 he occasionally illustrated the old subjects, but he also gave expression to some of the thoughts of the Reformers, although his portraits of reformers were more common than paintings of religious scenes. In a picture of 1518, where a dying man offers "his soul to God, his body to earth, and his worldly goods to his relations", the soul rises to meet the Trinity in heaven, and salvation is clearly shown to depend on faith and not on good works.[3]

Other works of this period deal with sin and divine grace. One shows Adam sitting between John the Baptist and a prophet at the foot of a tree. To the left God produces the tables of the law, Adam and Eve taste the forbidden fruit, the serpent raises its head, and punishment manifests in the shape of death and the realm of Satan. To the right, the Conception, Crucifixion and Resurrection symbolize redemption, and this is duly impressed on Adam by John the Baptist. There are two examples of this composition in the galleries of Gotha and Prague, both of them dated 1529.[3] His workshop made an altarpiece with a Crucifixion scene in the centre which is now in the Kreuzkirche, Hanover.

Towards the end of his life, after Luther's initial hostility to large public religious images had softened, Cranach painted a number of "Lutheran altarpieces" of the Last Supper and other subjects, in which Christ was shown in a traditional manner, including a halo, but the apostles, without halos, were portraits of leading reformers. He also produced a number of violent anti-Catholic and anti-Papacy propaganda prints in a cruder style. His best known work in this vein was a series of prints for the pamphlet Passional Christi und Antichristi,[8] where scenes from the Passion of Christ were matched by a print mocking practices of the Catholic clergy, so that Christ driving the money-changers from the Temple was matched by the Pope, or Antichrist, signing indulgences over a table spread with cash (see gallery below). Some of the prints were echoed by paintings, such as his Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1517).

One of his last works is the altarpiece, completed after his death by Lucas Cranach the Younger in 1555, for the Stadtkirche (city church) at Weimar. The iconography is original and unusual: Christ is shown twice, to the left trampling on Death and Satan, to the right crucified, with blood flowing from the lance wound. John the Baptist points to the suffering Christ, whilst the blood-stream falls on the head of a portrait of Cranach, and Luther reads from his book the words, "The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin."[3]

  • Madonna under the fir tree, 1510, Archdiocesan Museum, Wrocław
  • The Birth of John the Baptist, 1518
  • Infant Jesus and John the Baptist as child
  • Allegory of Law and Grace, c. 1529
  • The Herderkirche Weimar Cranach Altarpiece by Lucas Cranach the Elder and finished by his son Lucas Cranach the Younger in 1555 after his father's death.[9]

Mythological scenes
Hercules Relieving Atlas of the Globe, c. 1530, National Gallery of Art

Cranach was equally successful in a series of paintings of mythological scenes which nearly always feature at least one slim female figure, naked but for a transparent drape or a large hat.

These are mostly in narrow upright formats; examples are several of Venus, alone or with Cupid, who has sometimes stolen a honeycomb, and complains to Venus that he has been stung by a bee (Weimar, 1530; Berlin, 1534). Other such subjects are Diana with Apollo, shooting a bow, and Hercules sitting at the spinning-wheel mocked by Omphale and her maids.[3] A similar approach was taken with the biblical subjects of Salome and Adam and Eve.

The Fountain of Youth (Der Jungbrunnen), 1546

These subjects were produced early in his career, when they show Italian influences including that of Jacopo de' Barberi, who was at the court of Saxony for a period up to 1505. They then become rare until after the death of Frederick the Wise. The later nudes are in a distinctive style which abandons Italian influence for a revival of Late Gothic style, with small heads, narrow shoulders, high breasts and waists. The poses become more frankly seductive and even exhibitionist.[10]

Humour and pathos are combined at times in pictures such as Jealousy (Augsburg, 1527; Vienna, 1530), where women and children are huddled into groups as they watch the strife of men wildly fighting around them. A lost canvas of 1545 is said to show hares catching and roasting hunters. In 1546, possibly under Italian influence, Cranach composed the Fons Juventutis (The Fountain of Youth), executed by his son, a picture in which older women are seen entering a Renaissance fountain, and exiting it transformed into youthful beauties.[3]

Paintings

Portraits
  • Portrait of a Saxon Prince (Possibly Johann, husband of Elizabeth of Hesse), c. 1517
  • Portrait of a Saxon Princess (possibly George of Saxony's daughter-in-law Elizabeth of Hesse), c. 1517
  • John Frederick I, 1531
  • Sibylle of Cleves, wife of John Frederick I, 1526
  • Johannes Cuspinian, 1502
  • Johannes Cuspinian's wife, 1502
  • Lukas Spielhausen, 1532, Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Portrait of a man, 1510, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Religion, mythology, allegory

Looted Cranachs

The Nazis had a particular affection for Cranach's work and looted many paintings during the Third Reich.[11] This has led to claims for restitution, notably from Jewish collectors who were persecuted or looted by the Nazis. The Nazis looted Cranach's Portrait of John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony (around 1530s) from Jewish art collector Fritz Gutmann before murdering him but painting was recovered by Gutmann's grandson Simon Goodman eighty years later after decades of searching.[12] Cranach's "Cupid Complaining to Venus" passed through in Hitler's personal collection, causing the National Gallery to research its history, suspecting that it may have been looted.[13][14] The diptych Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder has been the focus of a legal dispute between the heirs of the former owner, Dutch art collector, Jacques Goudstikker, and the Norton Simon museum in California.[15] In 1999, the Commission for Art Recovery of the World Jewish Congress notified the North Carolina Museum of Art that its prized Cranach Madonna and Child had been looted by Nazis from the Jewish Viennese art collector, Philipp von Gomperz.[16] On 20 October 2000 a Budapest court ruled that a Cranach and other paintings claimed by the granddaughter of famous Hungarian Jewish art collector Baron Herzog, who was looted by Nazis with the Hungarian financial police, should be returned to her.[17] In 2012 the heirs of Rosa and Jakob Oppenheimer submitted a claim to the National Gallery of Ireland for a Cranach painting of Saint Christopher. The museum hired a private provenance researcher Laurie Stein to investigate the circumstance of the sale in 1934, and she concluded that the Cranach had not been sold under duress by the Jewish owners.[18] Most of the lawsuits last many years and go through several appeals in different courts.

References
  1. The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1984. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-87099370-1. Lucas Cranach the Elder was perhaps the most successful German artist of his time.
  2. "About Lucas Cranach". Cranach Digital Archive. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013. Retrieved 25 January 2012.
  3.  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cranach, Lucas". Encyclopædia Britannica. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 364.
  4. Cranach plaque, Marktplatz, Wittenberg
  5. "Gallery Label for Crucifixion".
  6. "Commemorations". lcms.org.
  7. Lutheranism 101 edited by Scot A. Kinnaman, CPH, 2010
  8. Passional Christi und Antichristi Full view on Google Books
  9. Zarling, Michael. "Justified in Jesus–the Weimar Altarpiece by Lucas Cranach – Bread for Beggars". Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  10. Snyder, James (1985). Northern Renaissance Art. Harry N. Abrams. p. 383. ISBN 0-13-623596-4.
  11. "Purloined pictures: the Nazi leaders' love of Cranach". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  12. Hinckley, Catherine. "Cranach portrait stolen almost 80 years ago returns to heirs of Jewish banker". www.lootedart.com. The Art Newspaper. Archived from the original on 1 May 2018. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  13. "Gallery seeks info on work once owned by Hitler". www.lootedart.com. Archived from the original on 24 November 2010. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  14. "National Gallery admits that masterwork may be Nazi loot". www.lootedart.com. The Times. Archived from the original on 24 November 2010. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  15. "The Battle Over the Norton Simon Museum's Nazi-Looted Cranach Paintings Isn't Over as Lawyers File for a Rehearing". www.lootedart.com. Archived from the original on 18 April 2019. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  16. "A Madonna stolen by Nazis takes a trip home". www.lootedart.com. Archived from the original on 24 November 2010. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  17. "Martha Nierenberg's claim for artworks from the Herzog Collection". www.lootedart.com. Archived from the original on 14 March 2017. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  18. "National Gallery of Ireland Provenance Research October 2017: 9 October 2017: Restitution claims for three paintings, two by the heirs of Rosa and Jakob Oppenheimer of Berlin, owners of the Margraf group, and one by the heirs of Alfred Weinberger". www.lootedart.com. Archived from the original on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 2021-01-10.

Further reading
  • Luther, Martin (1521) Passional Christi und Antichristi Reprinted in W.H.T. Dau (1921) At the Tribunal of Caesar: Leaves from the Story of Luther's Life. St. Louis: Concordia. (Google Books)
  • Posse, Hans (1942) Lucas Cranach d. ä. A. Schroll & Co., Vienna OCLC 773554 in German
  • Descargues, Pierre (1960) Lucas Cranach the Elder (translated from the French by Helen Ramsbotham) Oldbourne Press, London, OCLC 434642
  • Ruhmer, Eberhard (1963) Cranach (translated from the German by Joan Spencer) Phaidon, London, OCLC 1107030
  • Friedländer, Max J.and Rosenberg, Jakob (1978) The Paintings of Lucas Cranach Tabard Press, New York ISBN 0-914427-31-8
  • Nikulin, N (1976) Lucas Cranach, Masters Of World Painting, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad
  • Schade, Werner (1980) Cranach, a Family of Master Painters (translated from the German by Helen Sebba) Putnam, New York, ISBN 0-399-11831-4
  • Stepanov, Alexander (1997) Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1472–1553 Parkstone, Bournemouth, England, ISBN 1-85995-266-6
  • Koerner, Joseph Leo (2004) The reformation of the image University of Chicago Press, Chicago, ISBN 0-226-45006-6
  • Moser, Peter (2005) Lucas Cranach: His Life, His World, His Pictures (translated from the German by Kenneth Wynne) Babenberg Verlag, Bamberg, Germany, ISBN 3-933469-15-5
  • Brinkmann, Bodo et al. (2007) Lucas Cranach Royal Academy of Arts, London, ISBN 1-905711-13-1
  • Heydenreich, Gunnar (2007) Lucas Cranach the Elder: Painting materials, techniques and workshop practice, Amsterdam University Press, ISBN 978-90-5356-745-6
  • O'Neill, J (1987). The Renaissance in the North. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  • Sören Fischer (2017): Gesetz und Gnade: Wolfgang Krodel d. Ä., Lucas Cranach d. Ä. und die Erlösung des Menschen im Bild der Reformation, Kleine Schriften der Städtischen Sammlungen Kamenz, Band 8, Kamenz 2017, ISBN 978-3-910046-66-5
External video
Cranach's Adam and Eve, Smarthistory
Lucas Cranach the Elder's Cupid complaining to Venus, Smarthistory
Lucas Cranach the Elder: Cupid Complaining to Venus, National Gallery (London)
Lucas Cranach's Judith with the Head of Holofernes, Smarthistory
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