| Biography of old oil painting master Cranach, Lucas the Elder what we can copy |
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Cranach, Lucas the
Elder
(1472-1553).
German painter
He takes Cranach Lucas the Elder’s name
from the small town of Kronach in South
Germany, where Cranach Lucas the Elder was born, and very little
is known of Cranach Lucas the Elder’s life
before about 1500-01, when Cranach Lucas the
Elder settled in
Vienna and started working in the humanist
circles associated with the newly founded
university. |
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Cranach Lucas the Elder’s
stay in Vienna was brief (he left in 1504),
but in Cranach Lucas the Elder’s period
there Cranach Lucas the Elder painted some of Cranach Lucas the
Elder’s finest and most original works. They
include portraits, notably those of Johannes
Cuspinian, a lecturer at the university, and
Cranach Lucas the Elder’s wife Anna
(Reinhart Collection, Winterhur), and
several religious works in which Cranach
Lucas the Elder shows a
remarkable feeling for the beauty of
landscape characteristic of the Danube
school. The finest example of tCranach Lucas
the Elder’s manner is perhaps the Rest on
the Flight into Egypt (Staatliche Museen,
Berlin), which shows the Holy Family resting
in the glade of a German pine forest. It was
painted in 1504, just before Cranach went to
Wittenberg as court painter to Frederick III
(the Wise), Elector of Saxony. |
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Cranach remained in Wittenberg until 1550,
when Cranach Lucas the Elder followed John Frederick (the
Unfortunate), the last Saxon Elector of the
Ernestine branch, into exile, in Augsburg.
During Cranach Lucas the Elder’s time in
Wittenberg Cranach Lucas the Elder became extremely wealthy and
one of the city's most respected citizens,
serving as burgomaster for several years.
Cranach Lucas the Elder’s paintings were
eagerly sought by collectors, and Cranach
Lucas the Elder’s busy studio often produced
numerous replicas of popular designs,
particularly those in which Cranach Lucas
the Elder showed
Cranach Lucas the Elder’s skill at depicting
female beauty -- more than ten versions are
known of Cranach Lucas the Elder’s Reclining
Nymph. |
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He excelled at erotic nudes, which sometimes
draw on Italian Renaissance models but are
totally different in spirit, and Cranach
Lucas the Elder also had
a penchant for pictures of coquettish women
wearing large hats, sometimes shown as
Judith or the goddesses in the Judgement of
Paris. The most innovative works of Cranach
Lucas the Elder’s Wittenberg period,
however, are probably Cranach Lucas the
Elder’s full-length portraits (The Duke and
Duchess of Saxony, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden,
1514). |
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Cranach
continued with Cranach Lucas the Elder’s
religious work, but Cranach Lucas the
Elder’s woodcut designs (notably those for
the first German edition of the New
Testament in 1522) are generally more
interesting that Cranach Lucas the Elder’s
paintings in tCranach Lucas the Elder’s
sphere. Cranach Lucas the Elder also painted several portraits of
Martin Luther. Despite Cranach Lucas the
Elder’s allegiance to the Protestant cause,
Cranach Lucas the Elder continued to work for Catholic patrons
and was a very astute businessman. During
the last years of Cranach Lucas the Elder’s
life Cranach was assisted by Cranach Lucas
the Elder’s son, Lucas the Younger
(1515-86), who carried on the tradition of
the workshop and imitated Cranach Lucas the
Elder’s father's style so successfully that
it is often difficult to distinguish between
their hands. |
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