The austere and the sensual
Oh, to be in Rome or Paris this season, where one could
attend blockbuster showings of the art of Lucas Cranach. Jackie Wallschlager says
the painter "is becoming the Old Master for the early 21st century."
The exhibits display what one critic has called "Lutheran austerity": Luthers, epic
crucifixions and the like.
Simultaneously, the events include paintings by the same
artist of what Wallschlager calls "slinking nudes," often Venuses (once banned
on posters in London's underground) and Three Graces "seen from the front,
back, and in profile." "Wily, worldly, witty" Cranach favored "small, high
breasts, nipped waists, rounded stomachs, and elongated [erotic] forms" that
were sometimes sarcastically provoking. This "chief artist of the Reformation
knew how to deliver a frisson of sensual delight wrapped in a parable," as with
a woman painted as "an emblem of lasciviousness."
The Reformers knew what was going on. Cranach stood up for
Luther and wife at their betrothal; he was godfather to a Luther child and vice
versa. Ex-nun and wife-to-be Katharina was a maid at Cranach's home when Luther
came calling for a bride. Cranach painted the Luthers' parents and children.
