CRANACH, LUCAS (1472-1553), German painter, was born at Cronach, in upper Franconia, and learnt the art of draw ing from his father. He attracted the attention of the elector of Saxony, who gave him a position in his court in 15o4. The only clue to Cranach's settlement previous to his Wittenberg appoint ment is afforded by the knowledge that he owned a house at Gotha, and that Barbara Brengbier, his wife, was the daughter of a burgher of that city.
Of his skill as an artist we have sufficient evidence in a picture dated 1504. Af ter that date we find him active in several branches of his profession, producing portraits and altar-pieces, designing on wood, engraving copperplates, and acting as draughtsman for the dies of the electoral mint. Before 1508 he had painted several altar-pieces for the Schlosskirche at Wittenberg in competition with Darer, Burgkmair, and others ; the duke and his brother John were portrayed in various attitudes, and a number of the best woodcuts and copperplates were published. Great honour accrued to Cranach when he went in 1509 to the Netherlands and took sittings from the emperor Maximilian and the boy who afterwards became Charles V. Till 1508 Cranach signed his works with the initials of his name. In that year the elector gave him the winged snake as a motto, and this motto or Kleinod (jewel), as it was called, superseded the initials on all his pictures after that date. Cranach was at an early period with the reformers. The first engraved portrait of Luther by Cranach represents an Augustinian friar, and is dated 152o. Five years later the friar dropped the cowl, and Cranach was present as "one of the council" at the betrothal festival of Luther and Catherine Bora. Cranach died on Oct. 16, 1553, at Weimar, where the house in which he lived still stands in the market-place.
The oldest extant picture by Cranach, the "Rest of the Virgin during the Flight into Egypt," marked with the initials L. C., and the date of 1504, is one of the most graceful creations of his pencil. His copperplates and woodcuts furnish splendid examples of his art ; and the earlier they are in date the more conspicuous is their power. Striking evidence of this is the "St. Christopher" of 1506, or the plate of "Elector Frederick praying before the Madonna" (15o9). His first woodcut (15o5) represents the Virgin and three saints in prayer before a crucifix. Later on he composes the marriage of St. Catherine, a series of martyrdoms, and scenes from the Passion. After 1517 he illustrates occasionally the old gospel themes, but he also gives expression to some of the thoughts of the reformers. In a picture of 1518 at Leipzig, where a dying man offers "his soul to God, his body to earth, and his wordly goods to his relations," the soul rises to meet the Trinity in heaven, and salvation is clearly shown to depend on faith and not on good works. Again sin and grace become a familiar subject of delinea tion as in the two examples in the galleries of Gotha and Prague, both of them dated 1529. One of the latest pictures with which the name of Cranach is connected is the altar-piece which Cra nach's son completed in and which is now in the Stadtkirche (city church) at Weimar. Cranach sometimes composed gospel subjects with feeling and dignity. "The Woman taken in Adul tery" at Munich is a favourable specimen of his skill. But he was not exclusively a religious painter. He was equally successful, and often comically naive, in mythological scenes, as where Cupid, who has stolen a honeycomb, complains to Venus that he has been stung by a bee (Weimar, 1S3o; Berlin, or where Hercules sits at the spinning-wheel mocked by Omphale and her maids. Humour and pathos are combined at times with strong effect in pictures such as the "JealoLsy" (Augsburg, 1527; Vienna, 1S3o). In a lost canvas of 1545 he depicted hares catching and roasting sportsmen. In 1546, possibly under Italian influence, Cranach composed the "Fons Juventutis" of the Berlin gallery, executed by his son.
Cranach's chief occupation was that of portrait painting, and we are indebted to him chiefly for the preservation of the features of all the German reformers and their princely adherents. But he sometimes condescended to depict such noted followers of the papacy as Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop elector of Mainz, Anthony Granvelle, and the duke of Alva. A dozen likenesses of Frederick III. and his brother John are found to bear the date of 1532. It is characteristic of Cranach's readiness, and a proof that he possessed ample material for mechanical reproduction, that he received payment at Wittenberg in 1533 for "sixty pairs of portraits of the elector and his brother" in one day. Amongst existing likenesses we should notice as the best that of Albert, elector of Mainz, in the Berlin museum, and that of John, elector of Saxony, at Dresden.
Cranach had three sons, all artists—JOHN LUCAS, who died at Bologna in 1586; HANS CRANACH, whose life is obscure; and LUCAS CRANACH (1515-1586) "the younger." He was born at Wittenberg on Oct. 4, 1515, and died at Weimar on Jan. 25, 1586. He studied under his father and worked with him on many of his pictures. hi 1565 he was burgomaster of Wittenberg.
See Heller, Leben and Werke Lukas Cranachs, 2nd ed. (Bamberg, 1844) ; Chr. Schuchard, Lukas Cranachs des iilteren Leben and Werke (Leipzig, 1851-71) ; Warnecke, Cranach der altere (Gorlitz, 1879) ; Lippmann, Lukas Cranach, Sammlung, etc. (1895), reproductions of his most notable woodcuts and engravings; Woermann, Verzeichnis der Dresdener Cranach-Ausstellung von 1899 (Dresden, 1899) ; Flech sig, Tafebilder Cranach's des dltern and seiner Werkstatt (Leipzig, 1900) ; Muther, Lukas Cranach (1902) ; Michaelson, L. Cranach der altere (Leipzig, 100 2) .