Lucas Cranach the Elder Paintings That Shaped Protestant Art
Lucas Cranach the Elder is the most fascinating religious painter of the German Reformation. The Lucas Cranach the Elder paintings that survive today, more than four hundred securely attributed works, fill the great churches and museums of Saxony with the visual language of the early Lutheran Church. He was the close friend, godfather, and court painter of Martin Luther himself, and his religious panels track in real time the great theological transformation that broke European Christendom in two between 1517 and 1546.
This article gathers ten of his finest religious works, the panels and altarpieces that show how the Saxon master kept producing Catholic devotional imagery deep into the Reformation while at the same time inventing the visual idiom of the new Reformed Church.
From Kronach to the Saxon Court
Lucas Cranach the Elder was born in October 1472 in Kronach, a small town in upper Franconia, the son of the painter Hans Maler. He trained in his father’s workshop and in the late 1490s and early 1500s travelled to Vienna and to the Danube valley, where he absorbed the early German Renaissance ideas of the so-called Danube school. By 1505 he had been appointed court painter to Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, in Wittenberg, the position he would hold until 1550 under three successive electors.
His career covers the longest and most stable single appointment in early modern German painting. He worked through the entire German Reformation, painting altarpieces for both the Catholic prince-bishops who had been his earliest patrons and the Lutheran reformers who became his lifelong friends. He died on 16 October 1553 in Weimar, leaving his son Lucas Cranach the Younger as the heir to the largest painting workshop in northern Europe.
The Crucifixion with the Converted Centurion
Painted in 1538 for an unknown Saxon patron, this Crucifixion presents the moment when the Roman centurion at Calvary, traditionally identified as Longinus, recognised the divinity of the dying Christ and declared “Truly this man was the Son of God.” The composition is built on the dramatic vertical of the cross with the figure of the centurion in armour pointing upward in the foreground. Cranach paints the scene with the calm linear refinement of his mature manner.
The painting is at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, originally part of the Samuel H. Kress Collection of early German Renaissance painting.
The Crucifixion
A more austere variant of the same subject, this Crucifixion shows Christ alone on the cross with the Virgin and John the Evangelist at his feet. The figures are rendered with the slightly elongated grace of Cranach’s mature Wittenberg manner, and the colour is dominated by deep red, dark green, and silvery flesh tones.
The painting is at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. For a wider survey, see our article on famous Crucifixion paintings.
Crucifixion (Schottenstift)
Painted around 1500 for the Schottenstift in Vienna, this is one of Cranach’s earliest surviving works and shows the strong influence of the Danube school in which he trained. The Crucifixion is set in a dramatic landscape with the towers of a German city visible behind, and the figures of the mourners are rendered with the slightly elongated proportions that characterise Cranach’s earliest manner.
The painting is at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg before the Crucified Christ
Painted around 1525 for Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz and one of the most important Catholic princes of the early Reformation, this panel shows the cardinal kneeling in adoration before the Crucified Christ on a small altar. Albrecht had been Cranach’s patron for several decades and had commissioned numerous religious works from him even after the painter became closely associated with Luther.
The painting is at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.
The Holy Kinship Altarpiece (Torgau)
Painted in 1509 for the Schlosskirche in Torgau, the great Saxon castle of Frederick the Wise, this altarpiece presents the extended family of the Virgin Mary, the so-called Holy Kinship. The central panel shows Mary with her parents Joachim and Anna and her female cousins, while the wings show their husbands and the male relatives of the Holy Family. The composition is one of the most ambitious of Cranach’s pre-Reformation Saxon altarpieces.
The painting is at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt.
The Sacrifice of Isaac
The Old Testament scene from Genesis 22 shows Abraham about to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah when the angel of the Lord stops his hand and provides a ram caught in a thicket. Cranach paints the moment as a dramatic vertical, with Isaac kneeling in the foreground, Abraham raising the knife, and the angel descending from the upper right. The scene was read in medieval typological tradition as a prefiguration of the Crucifixion of Christ.
The painting is at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, in the State Gallery in the New Residence Bamberg.
Judith with the Head of Holofernes
The Old Testament heroine Judith stands holding the severed head of the Assyrian general Holofernes after rescuing her people. Cranach paints her in the richly dressed Saxon court manner with her sword and the bloodied head, looking outward at the viewer with calm satisfaction. The composition was widely reproduced in his workshop and was understood in the early Reformation as a prefiguration of the victory of the Reformed Church over its enemies.
The painting is at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Penitent Saint Jerome
Saint Jerome, the doctor of the Latin Church, is shown half-naked in his desert retreat, beating his chest with the stone of penance while his lion sleeps beside him. Cranach paints the scene with the close observed precision of a German Northern Renaissance master, with the desert imagined as a German forest full of small detailed plants and animals.
The painting is at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
The Martyrdom of Saint Barbara
The virgin martyr Saint Barbara kneels at the moment of her beheading by her own father, the third century Roman magistrate Dioscorus, who had imprisoned her in a tower for refusing to renounce her Christian faith. Cranach paints the scene with the dramatic vertical of the executioner’s sword above the saint and her father’s anguished face in the background, lit by the supernatural light of her impending sanctity.
The painting is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
For more context on Cranach’s German Renaissance world, see our articles on his great contemporary Albrecht Dürer, on his fellow Dürer-influenced master Hans Baldung, on the upper Rhine visionary Matthias Grünewald, and on the Augsburg-Basel master Hans Holbein the Younger.
Summary Table of Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Religious Paintings
| Name | Artist | Date | Medium | Museum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Crucifixion with the Converted Centurion | Lucas Cranach the Elder | 1538 | Oil on panel | National Gallery of Art, Washington |
| The Crucifixion | Lucas Cranach the Elder | c. 1530 | Oil on panel | Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields |
| Crucifixion (Schottenstift) | Lucas Cranach the Elder | c. 1500 | Oil on panel | Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
| Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg before the Crucified Christ | Lucas Cranach the Elder | c. 1525 | Oil on panel | Alte Pinakothek, Munich |
| The Holy Kinship Altarpiece (Torgau) | Lucas Cranach the Elder | 1509 | Oil on panel | Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac | Lucas Cranach the Elder | c. 1530 | Oil on panel | Alte Pinakothek, Munich |
| Judith with the Head of Holofernes | Lucas Cranach the Elder | c. 1530 | Oil on panel | Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
| Penitent Saint Jerome | Lucas Cranach the Elder | c. 1530 | Oil on panel | Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Barbara | Lucas Cranach the Elder | c. 1510 | Oil on panel | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Conclusion
Cranach’s religious painting tracks the great theological transformation of the German sixteenth century in real time. He kept producing Catholic Madonnas, Crucifixions, and saintly martyrdoms for his Saxon patrons even after his close friend Martin Luther had nailed the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenberg’s Schlosskirche. The continuity in his style across the rupture of the Reformation is one of the most fascinating phenomena in the history of European religious art, and his late altarpieces stand at the meeting point of late medieval Catholic devotion and the new Lutheran visual culture.
Important Facts About Lucas Cranach the Elder
- Lucas Cranach the Elder was born in October 1472 in Kronach, a small town in upper Franconia, the son of the painter Hans Maler, from whose birthplace Lucas took the surname by which he is known.
- He trained in his father’s workshop and travelled to Vienna and the Danube valley in the late 1490s, where he absorbed the early German Renaissance ideas of the so-called Danube school, before being appointed court painter to Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, in 1505.
- Cranach is one of the central figures of the German Renaissance and the most influential religious painter of the early Lutheran Reformation, of which his close friend Martin Luther was the central theological figure.
- His most famous religious works are the great altarpieces of Wittenberg and Weimar that he produced for the Reformed Saxon court, although the Catholic altarpieces of his early career, including the Holy Kinship of Torgau, also remain widely studied.
- He died on 16 October 1553 in Weimar, having served three successive Saxon electors for almost fifty years, and his enormous workshop was carried into the second half of the sixteenth century by his son Lucas Cranach the Younger.
Questions and Answers About Lucas Cranach the Elder Paintings
What is Lucas Cranach the Elder’s most famous painting?
Among his religious works, the great Wittenberg Altarpiece of 1547 in the Stadtkirche of Wittenberg is the most famous, with its central Last Supper showing the Reformer’s circle around Christ. Among the works covered in this article, the Holy Kinship of Torgau at the Städel and the Crucifixion with the Converted Centurion at the National Gallery of Art are the most often reproduced.
Where can I see Lucas Cranach the Elder paintings today?
The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna holds the largest single collection of his religious works outside Germany. The Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, the Stadtkirche and Schlosskirche of Wittenberg, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York all hold significant works.
What style is Lucas Cranach the Elder associated with?
Cranach is one of the central figures of the German Renaissance. His mature style is built on slightly elongated linear figures, calm Saxon court colour, dense observed German detail, and a particular emotional sweetness that distinguishes him from the more austere Dürer or the more visionary Grünewald. His late works are the founding visual idiom of the early Lutheran Reformed Church.
Was Cranach Catholic or Protestant?
Cranach was born and trained a Catholic and worked for the Catholic Saxon electors in his early career. From 1517 onward he became increasingly close to Martin Luther, whom he had met in Wittenberg, and he was godfather to one of Luther’s children. By the 1530s his workshop was producing the central visual images of the early Lutheran Reformation, although he continued to receive Catholic commissions from his older patrons like Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg.
What was Cranach’s relationship with Luther?
The two men were close personal friends from at least 1517 onward in Wittenberg, where both lived. Cranach was godfather to Luther’s daughter Anna, and Luther was godfather to one of Cranach’s children. The painter produced the most famous portraits of the Reformer and his circle, and his workshop printed thousands of Reformation tracts and broadsides for the new movement. After Luther’s death in 1546, Cranach continued to produce visual propaganda for the Reformed cause.
How does Cranach compare with Dürer?
The two painters were almost exact contemporaries and the two leading German artists of the early sixteenth century. Dürer is more austere, more classical, and more focused on the technical mastery of perspective and proportion. Cranach is more linear, more decorative, and more focused on courtly elegance and Saxon religious culture. Where Dürer represents the German absorption of the Italian high Renaissance, Cranach represents the German Reformation in its visual form.
Where can I buy Lucas Cranach the Elder paintings reproductions?
The shop at jesuschrist.pictures offers museum-quality canvas reproductions of the great Christian paintings, and the collection keeps growing; it is the best place to look for Lucas Cranach the Elder paintings reproductions.
