Editing Lucas Cranach the Elder (section)

==Works and art==
[[File:AdamEveParadiseCranach.jpg|thumb|left|upright|''[[Adam and Eve]]'', woodcut, 1509]]
[[File:Cranach the Elder Margaret of Pomerania.jpg|thumb|upright|''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.<ref name=EB1911/>

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]].<ref name=EB1911/>

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. [[Portrait of Martin Luther (Lucas Cranach the Elder)|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 of Mainz|archbishop elector of Mainz]], [[Anthony Granvelle]] and the [[Duke of Alva]].<ref name=EB1911/>

A dozen likenesses of [[Frederick III, Elector of Saxony|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.<ref name=EB1911/> Inevitably the quality of such works is variable.

===Religious subjects===
[[File:1529 Cranach Allegorie auf Gesetz und Gnade anagoria.JPG|thumb|''Allegory of Law and Grace'', c. 1529]]
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 [[Catherine of Alexandria|St. Catherine]], a series of [[martyr]]doms, and scenes from the [[Passion (Christianity)|Passion]].<ref name=EB1911/>

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.<ref name=EB1911/>

Other works of this period deal with sin and [[divine grace]]. One shows [[Adam (Bible)|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 [[Serpents in the Bible|serpent]] raises its head, and punishment manifests in the shape of death and the realm of [[Satan]]. To the right, the Conception, Crucifixion and [[Death and Resurrection of Jesus|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 (town)|Gotha]] and [[Prague]], both of them dated 1529.<ref name=EB1911/> 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 (religious iconography)|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'',<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=NMQ_Ar84DCcC Passional Christi und Antichristi] Full view on Google Books</ref> 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 (Lucas Cranach the Elder)|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."<ref name=EB1911/>
{{Further|Saint Maurice (Lucas Cranach the Elder and Workshop)|Sulmierzyce Madonna}}

<gallery widths="200" heights="250" perrow="5">
File:Lucas Cranach d. Ä. - The Lamentation of Christ - The Schleißheim Crucifixion - Alte Pinakothek.jpg|''Crucifixion of Christ'', 1503
File:Cranach Madonna under the fir tree.jpg|''Madonna under the Fir Tree'', 1510, Archdiocesan Museum, [[Wrocław]]
File:Måleri, religiös bild. Cranach - Skoklosters slott - 88957.tif|''The Birth of John the Baptist'', 1518
File:Infant Jesus and John the Baptist as child.jpg|''Infant Jesus and John the Baptist as Child''
File:Herderkirche Weimar Cranach Altarpiece.jpg|The [[St. Peter und Paul, Weimar|Herderkirche]] [[Weimar Altarpiece]] by Lucas Cranach the Elder and finished by his son [[Lucas Cranach the Younger]] in 1555 after his father's death<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.breadforbeggars.com/justified-in-jesus-the-weimar-altarpiece-by-lucas-cranach/|title=Justified in Jesus–the Weimar Altarpiece by Lucas Cranach – Bread for Beggars|last=Zarling|first=Michael|date=31 October 2014 |access-date=2018-12-05}}</ref>
File:Lucas Cranach d. Ä. (Werkst.) - Moses und die Wolkensäule (nach 1530).jpg|''Moses and the Pillar of Cloud'' by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Studio. Circa 1530. Private collection.
</gallery>

===Mythological scenes===
[[File:Lucas Cranach the Elder, Hercules Relieving Atlas of the Globe, c. 1530, NGA 106369.jpg|alt=Hercules holds the globe while atlas takes a break|thumb|''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 (goddess)|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 the [[The Three Graces (Cranach)|Three Graces]], [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]] with [[Apollo]], shooting a bow, and [[Heracles|Hercules]] sitting at the spinning-wheel mocked by [[Omphale]] and her maids.<ref name=EB1911/> A similar approach was taken with the biblical subjects of [[Salome]] and [[Adam and Eve]]. He and his workshop also painted more than sixty versions of [[Lucretia]], the self-stabbing pagan heroine whose death sparked the Roman Republic.

<gallery widths="160" heights="220" perrow="5">
File:Lucas Cranach d.Ä. - Amor beklagt sich bei Venus (National Gallery, London).jpg|''[[Cupid Complaining to Venus]]'', c. 1525
File:Lucas Cranach d.Ä. - Venus mit Cupid als Honigdieb (Galleria Borghese).jpg|''[[Venus and Cupid with a Honeycomb]]'', c. 1527
File:Lucas Cranach (I) - Venus and Cupid (1529) - National Gallery London.jpg|''Venus and Cupid'', 1529
File:Lucas Cranach the Elder - Venus with Cupid Stealing Honey - Google Art Project.jpg|''Venus and Amor'', 1530
File:Lucas Cranach d. Ä. - Venus and Cupid - WGA05644.jpg|''Venus with Cupid Stealing Honey'', 1531
File:Bemberg Fondation Toulouse - Vénus et Cupidon - Lucas Cranach (I) - 1531 Inv.1015.jpg|''Venus with Cupid'', 1531
File:Lucas Cranach the Elder - Venus - Google Art Project.jpg|''Venus'', 1532
File:Lucas Cranach d.Ä. - Caritas (Koninklijk Museum v. Schone Kunsten Antwerpen).jpg|''[[Caritas (Lucas Cranach the Elder)]]'', c. 1537
File:Judgement of Paris by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1528).jpg|Judgement of Paris (1528)
</gallery>
[[File:Lucas Cranach - Der Jungbrunnen (Gemäldegalerie Berlin).jpg|thumb|250px|''[[The Fountain of Youth (Cranach)|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.<ref>{{cite book|last=Snyder|first= James|title=Northern Renaissance Art|year=1985|publisher=Harry N. Abrams|isbn=0-13-623596-4|page=383}}</ref>

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 (Cranach)|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.<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911|wstitle=Cranach, Lucas |volume=7|last1= Crowe |first1= Joseph Archer |author1-link= Joseph Archer Crowe |page=364|short=1}}</ref>