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Lucas
Cranach (1472-1553) is a German painter, who named himself after his hometown
of Kronach, near Bamberg. He seems to have spent his first years of training
in his father's workshop. Nothing is known about his further training and
his years of traveling. There is evidence that he worked in Coburg, Gotha,
and Vienna, traveled in Danube valley, making drawings for woodcuts and
also painting, around A.D. 1500-1504 . Though no document attests it, the
early meeting between Cranach and Dürer,
whose workshop in Nuremberg enjoyed great fame, was unavoidable. Cranach
had evidently studied Dürer’s graphic art intensively. In his paintings
at that time, however, he tends towards “romanticism” The
Crucifixion (1502), Rest
on the Flight to Egypt (1504). Cranach is considered to be
the initiator of the so-called Danube school.
In 1504 Cranach went as a court painter to Frederick
the Wise of Saxony. In 1505 he settled permanently at Wittenberg. This
concluded his first creative phase. There was a dramatic change in his
style for which the court climate must, at least in part, be responsible.
For half a century (1505-1553) Cranach’s life was closely connected with
the life of the Saxon Electors. He accompanied Frederick the Wise on his
travels to Nuremberg, and to Trient on the occasion of Maximilian I’s coronation.
He carried out some delicate diplomatic missions and took part in all important
events occurring at the court. He was very busy attending festivities,
tournaments, burial and marriage ceremonies, he took part in hunting parties.
He created numerous portrait of the members of the Electors family and
members of the court, such as Portrait of
Henry the Devout of Saxony (1514),
Cardinal
Albrecht of Brandenburg before the Crucified Christ (c.1520-1530),
Portrait
of the Saxon Elector John the Constant (1526), Portrait
of Margarethe von Ponickau (1526), Portrait
of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg (1526), The
Saxon Princesses (Sibyl, Emilia and Sidonia of Saxe) (c.1530).
He also painted a lot of religious pictures: The
Betrothal of St. Catherine of Alexandria (c.1516), Virgin
and Child in a Grape Arbor (c.1525), Virgin
and Child under an Apple Tree (c.1530).
In 1508 Cranach accompanied an embassy to the Emperor Maximilian
I, and then to the Netherlands. A visit to the Netherlands in 1509
brought him into contact with Dutch art and indirectly with the conventions
of the Italian Renaissance.
Cranach gained great esteem in Wittenberg. In 1537 and again in 1540 he
was elected burgomaster of Wittenberg. He was closely associated with the
German Reformers. Being a friend of Luther,
he portrayed him several times. He became the great portraitist of the
Reformation without, however, committing himself to any particular confession.
In the second quarter of the 16th century, while his workshop was flourishing,
Cranach increasingly flavored a style tending towards the over-refined
and mannerism. This is especially noticeable in his depiction of the female
nude, such as Venus and Cupid
(1509), Venus Standing in a Landscape
(1529), Cupid Complaining to Venus
(c.1530s), Venus with Cupid Stealing Honey
(c.1531), The Judgment of Paris (1530),
The
Silver Age (The Effects of Jealousy) (1530). This too, may
be induced by court life with its predilection for erotic representation.
In 1550, faithful to the elector John Frederick, who was accused of treason
by Emperor Charles V, Cranach
followed him in his exile at Augsburg, Innsbruck, and Weimar, where he
died in 1553. Of three sons, all painters, the second, Lucas
the Younger (1515-1586) painted so like his father that their works
are difficult to distinguish.
Bibliography:
Die Dresdner Galerie. Alte Meister. by M. Alpatow. VEB Verlag
der Kunst. Dresden. 1966.
Cranach the Elder. by A. Nemilov. Moscow. 1973.
Malt, hände, malt. Ein Cranach-Roman. von Renate Krüger.
Leipzig. 1975.
Cranach. by Viorica Guy Marica. Maridiane. Bucharest. 1983.
The Cranachs: A Family of Painters. by Werner Schade. Moscow.
1987. (in Russian)
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary.
Moscow. Iskusstvo. 1999.
Lucas
Cranach the Elder by Harald Marx. Konemann, 2002.
Lucas
Cranach the Elder: 1472-1553 (Great Painters Series) by Alexander
Stepanov. Parkstone Press, 1997.
Lucas
Cranach: His Life, His World and His Art by Peter Moser. Babenberg,
2005.