Lucas Cranach The Elder: A Reformation Artist

Abstract Lucas Cranach The Elder (1472-1553) and his son, Lucas Cranach the Younger (1515-1586), are the two artists most closely related, both in friend ship and work, to the Lutheran reformation figures Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. Cranach the Elder, born in Kronach and from which city he took his name, lived half his life in the orbit of the Catholic Church and the beginning of Reformation currents, and the last half within the emer gent Lutheran church in Saxony.1 By contrast, his son, Cranach the Younger, was only two when the Ninety-five Theses were published, fourteen when his father began the series on Law and Gospel, and twenty-four when the first major altarpiece was installed in 1539 in Schneeberg. Hence, while Cranach the Elder made the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism, Cranach the Younger grew up within the Lutheranism of Wittenberg.