Lucas Cranach the Elder Art and Devotion of the German Reformation Bonnie Noble UNIVERSITY PRESS OF AMERICA,® INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK Copyright © 2009 by University Press of America,® Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 UPA Acquisitions Department (301) 459-3366 Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America British Library Cataloging in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Control Number: 2008943387 ISBN: 978-0-7618-4337-5 (clothbound : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-7618-4338-2 (paperback : alk. paper) eISBN: 978-0-7618-4339-9 ϱ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48—1984 Contents List of Illustrations v Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1 Law and Gospel and the Strategies of Pictorial Rhetoric 27 2 The Schneeberg Altarpiece and the Structure of Worship 67 3 The Wittenberg Altarpiece: Communal Devotion and Identity 97 4 Holy Visions and Pious Testimony: Weimar Altarpiece 138 5 Public Worship to Private Devotion: Cranach’s Reformation Madonna Panels 163 Conclusion 197 Bibliography 201 Index 219 iii Illustrations 1.1. Cranach, Law and Gospel, Gotha version 30 1.2. Cranach, Law and Gospel, Prague version 31 1.3. Cranach, copy of Law and Gospel, Prague version 33 1.4. Cranach, The Dying Man 39 1.5. Cranach, Hercules at the Crossroads 45 1.6. Cranach, Passional Christi et Antichristi, Entry into Jerusalem/ Pope and Entourage entering Hell 51 2.1. Cranach, Schneeberg Altarpiece, rear panels 68 2.2. Cranach, Schneeberg Altarpiece, closed position 69 2.3. Cranach, Schneeberg Altarpiece, opened position 70 2.4. Cranach, Schneeberg Altarpiece, detail, Last Supper 71 2.5. Cranach, Schneeberg Altarpiece, detail, Crucifixion 72 2.6. Cranach, Altarpiece of George the Bearded 80 2.7. Cranach, Albrecht of Brandenburg with a Crucifix 82 2.8. Cranach, Amsterdam Crucifixion Triptych 86 3.1. Cranach, Wittenberg Altarpiece, exterior panels 99 3.2. Cranach, Wittenberg Altarpiece, front panels 100 3.3. Cranach, Wittenberg Altarpiece, Last Supper 101 3.4. Cranach, Wittenberg Altarpiece, predella 102 3.5. Rogier van der Weyden, Altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments 107 3.6. Rogier van der Weyden, Altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments, detail of elevation 108 3.7. Cranach, Luther as Junker Jörg 112 3.8. Rogier van der Weyden, Altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments, detail of confession 123 v vi Illustrations 4.1. Cranach, Weimar Altarpiece, closed position 139 4.2. Cranach, Weimar Altarpiece, opened position 140 4.3. Cranach, Altarpiece of the Princes 145 4.4. Cranach, Weimar Altarpiece, detail of blood 150 4.5. Rogier van der Weyden, Vienna Crucifixion 152 5.1. Cranach, Berlin Madonna 167 5.2. Cranach, Hague Madonna 168 5.3. Cranach, Munich Madonna 169 5.4. Cranach, Frederick the Wise Venerating the Virgin 171 5.5. Cranach, Holy Kinship 172 5.6. Michael Ostendorfer, Fair Mary of Regensburg 175 5.7. Peter Koellin, Mary of Mercy 176 5.8. Cranach, Law and Gospel, woodcut 180 5.9. Cranach, Saint Jerome in His Study 185 Acknowledgments I can never hope to thank all the people who have supported me, emotionally and intellectually, since Lucas Cranach the Elder first crossed my path in an undergraduate class at Northwestern University. My mother, Ruth Simonson Noble, and my sisters, Wynne Noble and Adrienne Noble-Nacev, saw me through this project with unwavering support. My stepdaughters, Hannah McNeil and Kelsey McNeil, made room for my work no matter how absurd it seemed and walked patiently through endless museums. My esteemed teachers and colleagues, Charles Minot, Donald McColl, Shelia ffolliott, and Jeffrey Chipps Smith deserve more credit than a few lines of acknowledg- ment can begin to convey. Professor Larry Silver, who introduced me to the wonders of the Northern Renaissance and who supervised the dissertation that paved the way for this book, deserves special, heartfelt thanks for two decades of friendship and support. I also owe a very special thank you to my adopted German families, Familie Eitner and Familie Finkenstaedt, who helped me make a new home in Germany, and to Miss Helen Ruhren, who ac- cidentally led me to a love of the German language. I also wish to thank the anonymous readers from University Press for their insights, and my copyeditor, Kathy Delfosse, for her swift and competent cleanup of an unruly manuscript. I am grateful to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for funding travel and study in Germany and eastern Europe. I also wish to thank the University of North Carolina at Char- lotte for funding research travel to Germany, and the National Endowment for the Humanities for a year of research and writing that allowed me to trans- form a dissertation into a book. Finally, I dedicate this book to my past, present, and future: to the memory of my father, Dr. Jerome Noble; to my twins, Cole Hembree McNeil and vii viii Acknowledgments Sophia Noble McNeil, who waited good-naturedly for me to emerge from my study; and to my beloved husband, Jeff McNeil, who saw me through this of- ten tortured project with gentle encouragement and saintly patience. My love and gratitude are boundless. Parts of this book have been previously published in the following sources: “From Vision to Testimony: Cranach’s Weimar Altarpiece.” Reformation and Renaissance Review 5, no. 2 (2003): 135–65 (Equinox Publishing Ltd 2003). “‘[A] Work in Which the Angels Are Wont to Rejoice’: Lucas Cranach’s Schneeberg Altarpiece.” Sixteenth Century Journal 34, no. 3 (2003): 1011–37. “A Virgin’s Work Is Never Done: The Madonna Panels of the Cranach Workshop.” Maria: A Journal of Marian Studies 3, no. 2 (2003): 168–200. “Law and Gospel: Scripture, Truth, and Pictorial Rhetoric.” Southeastern College Art Conference Review 14, no 4 (2004): 314–32. “The Wittenberg Altarpiece and the Image of Identity.” Reformation 11 (2006): 79–129. Introduction The subject of this book is a group of paintings from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1572–53) that both perpetuate and interpret ideas based in Lutheran (evangelical) theology.1 Cranach produced images, many in direct collaboration with Martin Luther (1483–46),2 that not only inspired artists throughout the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth, but also made the reformer’s complex ideas intelligible to a wide range of viewers. Despite Cranach’s crucial role as an interpreter of Lutheran thought, many of his Re- formation paintings, especially the monumental retables in Schneeberg, Wit- tenberg, and Weimar, remain unfamiliar to many American and European scholars. One of my primary objectives in this study, then, is to present these major works of art as a thematic group to a broader audience. I will treat this objective in two ways: I will illustrate how these images can be distinguished from art produced for Catholic patrons and viewers in the later Middle Ages and during the Reformation. I will also explicate the pictorial strategies em- ployed in the production of these images to show how they were used to clar- ify and interpret Lutheran thought.3 The pictures whose production Cranach oversaw, not the ones he actually physically painted from beginning to end, are my concern. For the purposes of this study, tracing the hand of the master is less important than understanding the conceptual underpinnings of these pictures. Cranach the Elder’s first and last Lutheran paintings mark the chronologi- cal parameters of this study. I begin in 1529, the year Cranach painted Law and Gospel (figs. 1.1–1.3, and 5.8), the first clearly identifiable Lutheran painting. (Lutheran prints had appeared far earlier.)4 The Schneeberg Altar- piece (figs. 2.1–2.3), Cranach’s first Lutheran retable, was completed in 1539, and the Wittenberg Altarpiece (figs. 3.1–3.4) was installed on the high altar in 1 2 Introduction 1547. The Weimar Altarpiece (figs. 4.1, 4.2, 4.4), the workshop’s last major commission during Cranach the Elder’s lifetime, was placed on the high altar of the City Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Weimar in 1555, two years af- ter the artist’s death. Its completion represents Cranach the Elder’s final en- terprise and the conclusion of the initial phase of Lutheran art production. In the final chapter of this study, my focus will shift from Cranach’s large, pub- lic altarpieces to his smaller Madonna paintings, which supported the private devotion of viewers with Lutheran sympathies. It is important to note that the confessional boundaries in the mid-sixteenth century were blurry and inchoate. It would perhaps be more appropriate to re- fer to viewers with Catholic or Lutheran sympathies, rather than to “Catholics” and “Lutherans”; however, to avoid clumsy locutions throughout this study, I will use the terms “Catholic” and “Lutheran.” These terms should be understood as shorthand for those still-forming confessional categories rather than as an assertion of clear denominational boundaries (see note 1). The fundamental assumption of this discussion, an assumption more es- sential than the specific claims I will make about particular paintings, is that images play a role in the formation of religious identity. Religious art medi- ates the relationship between humanity and divinity. One basic purpose of any religion is to create a foundation upon which to build a relationship with the divine.5 Many mechanisms and tools help nurture and define this relation- ship: the interpretation of holy texts, individual and communal rituals, and practices of discipline, prayer, and meditation. One of the most important in- termediaries between humanity and divinity is art.