Editing Lucas Cranach the Elder (section)

===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>