Cranach, like his patron, was friendly with the Protestant Reformers at a very early stage ; yet it is difficult to fix the time of his first meeting with Martin Luther.

According to one definition of the term, they were first invented by Lucas Cranach in Germany in 1507.

According to one definition of the term, they were first invented by Lucas Cranach in Germany in 1507, and first made in Italy by Ugo da Carpi before 1516.

The Greek Garden of the Hesperides was somewhat similar to the Christian concept of the Garden of Eden, and by the 16th century a larger intellectual association was made in the Cranach painting ( see illustration at top ).

Albrecht's brother, Erhard Altdorfer, was also a painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving, and a pupil of Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Lucas Cranach the Elder ( Lucas Cranach der Ältere, 4 October 1472 – 16 October 1553 ), was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving.

Lucas Cranach the Elder ( 1472 – 1553 ), the great painter patronized by the electors of Wittenberg, was a close friend of Luther, and illustrated Luther's theology for a popular audience.

Lucas Cranach the Elder ( 1472 – 1553 ), the great painter patronized by the electors of Wittenberg, was a close friend of Luther, and illustrated Luther's theology for a popular audience.

Inside the church are the tombs of Luther and Philipp Melanchthon, and of the electors Frederick the Wise ( by Peter Vischer the Younger, 1527 ) and John the Constant ( by Hans Vischer ), and portraits of the reformers by Lucas Cranach the Younger.

It contains a magnificent painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder, representing the Last Supper ( with the faces of Luther and other reformers ), Baptism and Confession, also a font by Hermann Vischer the Elder ( 1457 ).

John the Baptist points to the suffering Christ, whilst the blood-stream falls on the head of a portrait of Cranach, and Luther reads from his book the words, " The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin.

The Antichrist, by Lucas Cranach the Elder – 1521, commissioned by Martin Luther.

Lucas Cranach the Elder depicted the papacy as the Beast of Revelation wearing a papal tiara in Luther Bible | Luther's 1522 translation of the New Testament.

Painting of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder | Lucas Cranach.

From a series of woodcuts ( 1545 ) usually referred to as the " Papstspotbilder " or " Papstspottbilder ", by Lucas Cranach the Elder | Lucas Cranach, commissioned by Martin Luther.

1480, a well worked baptismal font furnished with the benefactor's coat of arms and a painting influenced by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Younger which shows a last supper administered by Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon.

The oldest reference to Cranach in Luther's correspondence dates from 1520.

Three years afterward, when all the dignitaries of the Empire met at Augsburg to receive commands from the emperor, and Titian came at Charles's bidding to paint King Philip II of Spain, John Frederick asked Cranach to visit the city ; and here for a few months he stayed in the household of the captive elector, whom he afterward accompanied home in 1552.

The Protestant theologian Philipp Melanchthon is one of the few contemporary writers to refer to Grünewald, who is rather puzzlingly described as " moderate " in style, when compared with Dürer and Cranach ; what paintings this judgement is based on is uncertain.

Dürer's work on the book was halted for an unknown reason, and the decoration was continued by artists including Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Baldung.

The subject was painted many times by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Antichristus ( 1521 ) by Lucas Cranach the Elder is a woodcut of the Papal States at war during the Renaissance. During this period the city of Avignon itself was added to the Papal States ; it remained a papal possession even after the popes returned to Rome, being seized and incorporated into the by then unitary French state only during the French Revolution.

Lucas Cranach the Younger ( October 4, 1515 – January 25, 1586 ) was a German Renaissance artist, known for his woodcuts and paintings.

He was the youngest son of Lucas Cranach the Elder and Barbara Brengebier, and began his career as an apprentice in his father's workshop alongside his brother Hans.

How Cranach was trained is not known, but it was probably with local south German masters, as with his contemporary Matthias Grünewald, who worked at Bamberg and Aschaffenburg ( Bamberg is the capital of the diocese in which Kronach lies ).

Cranach was to remain in the service of the Elector and his successors for the rest of his life, although he was able to undertake other work.

This accounts for the comparative unproductiveness as painters of Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein the Younger, and also may explain why Cranach was not especially skilled at handling colour, light, and shade.

Towards the end of his life, after Luther's initial hostility to large public religious images had softened, Cranach painted a number of " Lutheran altarpieces " of the Last Supper and other subjects, in which Christ was shown in a traditional manner, including a halo, but the apostles, without halos, were portraits of leading reformers.

Cranach was equally successful in somewhat naive mythological scenes, in which at least one slim female figure, naked except for a transparent drape, and perhaps for a large hat, nearly always features.

He had a large workshop and many works exist in different versions ; his son Lucas Cranach the Younger, and others, continued to create versions of his father's works for decades after his death.

Cranach married Barbara Brengbier, the daughter of a burgher of Gotha and also born there ; she died at Wittenberg on 26 December 1540.

Cranach had two sons, both artists: Hans Cranach, whose life is obscure and who died at Bologna in 1537 ; and Lucas Cranach the Younger, born in 1515, who died in 1586.

For instance, in Lucas Cranach the Elder's " Adam and Eve " different scenes of the Biblical story are shown in the same painting: on the front, God is admonishing the couple for their sin ; in the background to the right are shown the earlier scenes of Eve's creation from Adam's rib and of their being tempted to eat the forbidden fruit ; on the left is the later scene of their expulsion from Paradise.

* Lucas Cranach the Elder-1 painting ;

Among them are Alexander Calder's Eagle ( 1971 ) and Richard Serra's Wake ( 2004 ), both at the Olympic Sculpture Park ; the aforementioned Hammering Man ; Cai Guo-Qiang's Inopportune: Stage One ( 2004 ), a sculpture constructed from cars and sequenced multi-channel light tubes on display in the lobby of the SAM Downtown ; The Judgment of Paris ( c. 1516-18 ) by Lucas Cranach the Elder ; Mark Tobey's Electric Night ( 1944 ); Yéil X ' eenh ( Raven Screen ) ( c. 1810 ), attributed to the Tlingit artist Kadyisdu. axch '; Do-Ho Suh's Some / One ( 2001 ); and a coffin in the shape of a Mercedes Benz ( 1991 ) by Kane Quaye of Ghana.

: Among many others the Pinakothek shows works of Stefan Lochner (" Adoration of the Christ Child by the Virgin ( The Nativity )"), Albrecht Dürer (" The Four Apostles ", " Paumgartner Altar ", " Self-portrait in Fur Coat "), Hans Baldung Grien (" Markgrave Christoph of Baden "), Albrecht Altdorfer (" The Battle of Issus "), Cranach (" Lamentation Beneath the Cross "), Holbein (" St. Sebastian Altar ; Central panel: Martyrdom of St. Sebastian "), Matthias Grünewald (" SS.

The European iconography is fairly consistent, as the Cranach painting and mirror-case from 200 years earlier demonstrate: old people, often carried, enter at left, strip, and enter a pool that is as large as space allows.

Cranach later owned a house at Gotha, but most likely he got to know Barbara near Wittenberg, where her family also owned a house, that later also belonged to Cranach.

As Cranach wrote from his house to the grand-master Albert of Brandenburg at Königsberg to tell him of John Frederick's capture, he showed his attachment by saying, I cannot conceal from your Grace that we have been robbed of our dear prince, who from his youth upwards has been a true prince to us, but God will help him out of prison, for the Kaiser is bold enough to revive the Papacy, which God will certainly not allow.

During the siege Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, remembered Cranach from his childhood and summoned him to his camp at Pistritz.

One of his last works is the altarpiece, completed after his death by Lucas Cranach the Younger in 1555, for the Stadtkirche ( city church ) at Weimar.

With a provenance dating back to Philip II's collection are the two panels by Hans Baldung Grien, Harmony or The Three Graces and The Ages of Man, and two works by Lucas Cranach the Elder: Hunt in Honour of Charles V at the Castle of Torgau and Hunt in Honour of Ferdinand I, King of the Romans, at the Castle of Torgau.

** Statement of the Cranach Institute Protesting the Removal of William Dembski as Director of the Michael Polanyi Center at Baylor University

The most important works include Maso di Banco's Coronation of the Virgin, Sassetta's Saint Thomas Aquinas at Prayer, Domenico Ghirlandaio's Saint Stephen Martyr, Gentile Bellini's Portrait of Caterina Cornaro, Giorgione's Portrait of a Young Man, Raphael's Esterhazy Madonna, Correggio's Madonna and Child with an Angel, three works by Sebastiano del Piombo, Bronzino's Adoration of the Shepherds as well as his Venus, Cupid and Jealousy, Titian's Portrait of Doge Marcantonio Trevisani, Tintoretto's Supper at Emmaus, Tiepolo's St James the Greater in the Battle of Clavijo, Dürer's Portrait of a Young Man, Bernard van Orley's Portrait of Emperor Charles V, eight pictures by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Pieter Bruegel the Elder's St John the Baptist Preaching, Rubens's Mucius Scaevola Before Porsenna, two excellent portraits by Frans Hals, and a particularly strong collection of works by Spanish masters including El Greco, Velázquez and Goya.