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Lucas Cranach the Elder MagnifiedGetty Museum Website Tool Examines German Renaissance Artwork
"Cranach Magnified" allows Internet users to examine details of important masterpieces: "Adam and Eve," "A Faun and His Family with a Slain Lion" and "Apollo and Diana."
One of the most prolific German artists of the 16th Century was Lucas Cranach the Elder. Los Angeles, California's J. Paul Getty Museum debuted on June 28, 2007 a sophisticated program on its website called Cranach Magnified. Internet users can virtually examine details in three of the Northern Renaissance master's paintings in a way usually reserved for Renaissance scholars, art historians and scientists. Cranach's Life and CareerLucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) was born in the German town of Kronach in Upper Franconia, part of the Holy Roman Empire. Possibly trained as an artist by his painter father, Cranach later married Barbara Brengbier and went on to teach his sons John Lucas (d. 1536), Hans and Lucas (1515-1586). The two youngest brothers were employed in their father's workshop. In 1504/5 he was appointed pictor ducalis or court painter to Elector Frederick III the Wise of Saxony (1463-1525) and his family at Wittenberg, where the Christian ruler founded a university in 1502. Cranach's altarpieces brought him notoriety early in his career. A talented painter, draftsman and engraver, he eventually became a bookshop owner, pharmacy proprietor and member of Wittenberg's city council. In 1509 he traveled to the Netherlands where Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (r. 1493-1519) and his grandson, the future Charles V (r. 1519-1558), sat for their portraits. The artist's role as Frederick the Wise's court painter brought him into close contact with Martin Luther (1483-1546), the excommunicated Protestant reformer whom the elector protected from execution for heresy by the Catholic Church. In fact, Cranach attended the Augustinian friar's betrothal ceremony to Katharina von Bora (1499-1552), a former Cistercian nun, in 1525. Luther relied on Cranach to print his pamphlets and design the woodcuts for the theologian's vernacular translation of the New Testament into German. Needless to say, Cranach's shrewd business skills, political connections and vivid artistry made him a success. The Cranach Magnified Tool Cranach was keenly aware of the 16th Century's intellectual movements and religious controversies. Influenced by them, he produced a number of paintings whose subject matter was Biblical and mythological. Presently included in the Getty Museum's Cranach Magnified site are three of the artist's masterpieces: Adam and Eve (1526) from London's Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery; A Faun and His Family with a Slain Lion (ca. 1526) from the J. Paul Getty Museum; and Apollo and Diana (ca. 1530) from London's Royal Collection. All three works are featured in the Courtauld Institute's special exhibition Temptation in Eden: Lucas Cranach's 'Adam and Eve' (June 21 through September 23, 2007). Cranach maintained a very active workshop; his studio produced multiple versions of his popular works that were in very high demand. The Getty Museum plans on adding other compositions by the artist and his assistants to Cranach Magnified so that scholars worldwide can study them more closely and help determine which ones were actually painted by the master. With the Cranach Magnified tool, art scholars, students and enthusiasts can macroscopically examine the artist's paintings two at a time and side by side. The easy-to-use toolbar enables the viewer to pan across the oil on panel paintings in all four directions. And the zoom in/zoom out feature allows for adjustable magnification of the works' details. Technological innovations such as this one will enable generations of viewers to examine ove rlong distances the brushstrokes and details of paintings not visible to the naked eye. Sources:
The copyright of the article Lucas Cranach the Elder Magnified in Curating Art is owned by Stan Parchin. Permission to republish Lucas Cranach the Elder Magnified in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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