CRANACH, Lucas the Elder. - German painter, woodcut artist and draughtsman, b. at Kronach (Franconia) in 1472, d. at Weimar on 16 Oct. 1553, son of a painter Hans C. His artistic training is still unclear: only after he was called to the court of Frederick of Saxony (1504) can the development of his activity be traced. Nevertheless his activity from 1500 to 1504 is the most interesting; his works of that time show him to be endowed with a great temperament, a predecessor of Altdorfer (v.), comparable as a passionate colourist to Grünewald (v.) himself, founder of the so-called "Donaustil" (v. ALTDORFER), not free of influences on the part of Dürer (v.), but less classical than the latter.
Perhaps in 1498 he undertook the journey to Austria, truly important for him and for the development of Danubian painting; in 1503 he is recorded at Vienna. From this period are: the Crucifixion of the "Schottenstift" in Vienna (ca. 1500); the St. Jerome in the museum of Vienna (1502); the Crucifixion of the Munich picture gallery (1503); the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, in Berlin (1504). From 1505 until his death he was court painter to the Elector of Saxony, and as such remained almost always at Wittenberg. He had a vast workshop, from which hundreds of works came, sometimes altarpieces of Renaissance form, but of an ever-increasing and colder academicism. Although a friend of Luther (of whom he made several portraits) and almost the official painter of the German Reformation, whose dictates he also followed in the choice of religious themes, he worked at the same time for opponents of the Reformation, such as for Card. Albert of Brandenburg. From 1520 onward he becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between his own production and that of the workshop. His activity in Wittenberg is interrupted by the following journeys: in 1508 to the Netherlands; in 1550-52 (with the captive elector) to Augsburg and Innsbruck; in 1552 he returned to Weimar. Mature and late works: 1505 Torgau Altar, Frankfurt; 1506 Altar of St. Catherine, Dresden (his most famous work); ca. 1520-25 the Crucifix with the Cardinal of Brandenburg, Munich; 1534, altar at Meissen; 1550 the Self-Portrait in the Uffizi in Florence, and an ever greater number of portraits and mythological scenes. He was famous as an engraver and woodcut artist (also color woodcuts with gold and silver); together with Dürer, he was among the collaborators for the Gebetbuch of Emperor Maximilian.
His sons were also painters: HANS C.: died young in 1537 in Italy. LUKAS C. the Younger, b. at Wittenberg on 4 Oct. 1515, d. at Weimar on 21 Jan. 1586. Both are completely under their father's influence and are difficult to distinguish from the other members of the workshop. - See plate XLVIII.
Bibliography12 works
Bernardo Degenhart