LUCAS CRANACH THE ELDER AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY

LUCAS CRANACH THE ELDER at the ROYAL ACADEMY

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), an exceptional Late Medieval artist, typifies his era rather than foreshadowing the next as Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) did. Cranach's depiction of Melancholia, clearly strongly influenced or derived from Durer's famous work is essentially medieval in its association of melancholy with sin, witches, Satan, whereas Durer's work, a humanist masterpiece, associates melancholy with the progressive forces of intellectualism and creativity. Most of the works, besides the portraits, are consumed by religious references which clearly reflect the worldview of Cranach’s wealthy patrons. Late Medieval Franconia (Northern Bavaria) wasn't essentially as enlightened as Italy and the Medici in Florence had been, for instance. This is at odds with Harry Lime’s view of Renaissance Italy, for in The Third Man Lime contrasts the creatively productive turbulence of Italy with 500 years of peace in Switzerland producing only the cuckoo clock. That's not quite correct history but makes a good joke.

The best of the portraits are Cranach's depiction of his friend, the church reformist and revolutionary, Martin Luther (1483-1546), and portraits of contemporary women without context but framed solely in black. In Cranach's best portrait Luther sports a beard, gazes agitatedly out of the canvas, clutching the pommel of his sword as if he might have recourse to use it. At this time Luther was in hiding under the pseudonym Junker Jorg, a consequence of his reformist activities. Cranach helped Luther in terms of making and printing broadsheets of Reformist propaganda yet also worked for the Catholic Church simultaneously. Clearly Cranach had the clear-headed idea that the artist must survive, that his or her personal survival came before commitment to any faith, credo or ideology. This gives us clear insight into the day to day working of Cranach in a harsh world but his lack of scruples acted to enrich his art.

Cranach's painting is very precise, almost painfully so, each significant painting is strongly focussed on some small but significant narrative. It’s clear that narrative is essential to good painting. The portraits point beyond the depiction to some character trait that we may deduce. Light is rarely something that Cranach mediates on very much, insisting on verisimilitude as his era conceived it. Early in his career he was beginning to be influenced by classical depictions of the male nude derived from contemporary Italian art, the spread of humanist ideals, yet his figures often seem distorted as if they are wearing some form of sprayed on body paint or overall sock. The colours are the most beautiful aspect of Cranach's painting, derived as they were from natural pigments. Interestingly the red he used was derived from the crushed bodies of tiny insects. The ultramarine he used sparingly had to be brought all the way from Afghanistan. Understanding these limitations allows us to understand Cranach, his era and undoubtedly enhances the greatness of his art, just as understanding that Mozart composed music in an era without the light bulb makes his achievement all the greater.

The Golden Age (ca 1530) is perhaps Cranach’s most intriguing painting. In it Cranach depicts a Utopia, both confirming the agricultural abundance of Late Medieval Franconia and the devotion to leisure time which was a product of more advanced agricultural techniques not some abstract plenty that hardly existed. Franconia was plentiful but most of the land was bounded and property was private. This was also a time of plague, religious warfare culminating in the 30 Years War which devastated Europe, witch-burning, anti-semitic pogroms and many other ignorant practises that summarised the age more profoundly than the paintings of Cranach could.

Cranach was an artist serving his time, his patrons. In contrast, Durer, an intellectual and revolutionary, dared to break the mould. In many ways the paintings of Lucas Cranach the elder, obviously sophisticated, intelligent paintings of that era are really only useful as a counterpoint to the work of Albrecht Durer, a contemporary of Cranach who broke away from his own age to offer us intimations of modernity.

Paul Murphy, the Royal Academy, London

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