Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/578

544 and Bamberg is the capital of the diocese in which Cronach lies. According to Gunderam, the tutor of Cranach s chil dren, Cranach signalized his talents as a painter before the close of the 15th century. He then drew upon himself tho attention of the elector of Saxony, who attached him to his persan in 1504. The records of Wittenberg confirm Gun- derain s statement to this extent that Cranach s name appears for the first time in the public accounts on the 2ith of June 1504, when he drew 50 gulden for the salary of half a year, as pictor ducalis. The only clue to Cranach s settlement previous to his Wittenberg appointment 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 (Fiedler collection at Berlin), preserved till lately in the Sciarra Colonna Palace at Rome. But as to the develop- m3nt of his manner prior to that date we are altogether in ignorance. In contrast with this obscurity is the light thrown upon Cranach after 1504. We find him active in several branches of his profession, sometimes a mere house- piinter, more frequently producing portraits and altar- pieces, a designer on wood, an engraver of copper-plates, aud draughtsman for the dies of the electoral mint. Early in the days of his official employment he startled his master s courtiers by the realism with which he painted still life, game, and antlers on the walls of the country palaces at Coburg and Locha-i ; his pictures of deer and wild boar were considered striking, and the duke fostered his passion for this form of art by taking him out to the hunting field, where he sketched &quot; his grace &quot; running the stag, or Duke John sticking a boar. Before 1508 he had painted several altar-pieces for tha Schlosskirche at Wittenberg in competition with Diirer, Burgkmair, and others ; the duke aud his brother Johu were portrayed in various attitudes, and a number of the best woodcuts and copper-plates were published. Great honour accrued to d anach 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 nama. In that year the elector gave him the winged snake as a motto, and this motto or K einod, as it was called, superseded the initials on all his pictures after that date. Somewhat later the duke conferred on him the monopoly of the sale of medicines at Wittenberg, and a printer s patent with exclusive privileges as to copyright in Bibles. The presses of Cranach were used by Luther. His chemist s shop was open for centuries, and only parished by fire in 1871. Relations of friendship united the painter with the Refor mers at a very early period ; yet it is difficult to fix the time of his first acquaintance with Luther. The oldest notice of Cranach in the Reformer s correspondence dates from 1520. In a letter written from Worms in 1521, Luther calls him his gossip, warmly alluding to his &quot; Gevatterin,&quot; the artist s wife. His first engraved portrait by Cranach represents an Augustine friar, and is dated 1520. Five years later the monk dropped the cowl, and Cranach was prasent as &quot; one of the council &quot; at the betrothal fsstival of Luther and Catherine Bora. The death at short intervals of the Electors Frederick and John (1525 and 1532) brought no change in the pros perous situation of the painter ; he remained a favourite with Joha Frederick I., under whose administration ho twice (1537 and 1540) filled the office of burgomaster of Wittenberg. But 1547 witnessed a remarkable change in these relations. John Frederick was taken prisoner at the battle of Muhlberg, and Wittenberg was subjected to stress of siege. As Cranach wrote from his house at the corner of the market-place to the Grand-Master Albert of Brandenburg at Kb nigsberg to tell him of John Frederick s capture, he showed his attachment by saying, &quot; I cannot conceal from your Grace that we have been robbed of our dear prince, who from his youth upwards lias 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.&quot; During the siege Charles bethought him of Cranach, whom he remembered from his childhood, and summoned him to his camp at Pistritz. Cranach came, reminded his majesty of his early sittings as a boy, and begged on his knees for kind treat ment to the Kurfiirst. Three years afterwards, when all the dignitaries of the empire met at Augsburg to receive commands from the emperor, and when Titian at Charles s bidding came to take the likeness of Philip of Spain, John Frederick asked Cranach to visit the Swabian capital ; and here for a few months he was numbered amongst the house hold of the captive elector, whom he afterwards accompanied home in 1552. He died at Weimar, in October 1553. The oldest extant picture of Cranach, the Rest of the Virgin during the Flight in Egypt, marked with the initials L.C., and the date of 1504 (Mr Fiedler, Berlin), is by far the most graceful creation of his pencil. It is enlivened by a host of angels ministering in the pleasantest way to the wants of the infant Saviour. The scene is laid on tho margin of a forest of pines, and discloses the habits of a painter familiar with the mountain scenery of Thuringia. There is more of gloom in landscapes of a later time ; arid this would point to a defect in the taste of Crauach, whose stag hunts (Moritzburg, Madrid, Labouchere collection) are otherwise not unpleasing. Cranach s art in its prime was doubtless influenced by causes which but slightly affected the art of the Italians, but weighed with potent consequence on that of the Netherlands and Germany. The business of booksellers who sold woodcuts and engravings at fairs and markets in Germany naturally satisfied a craving which arose out of the paucity of wall-paintings in churches and secular edifices. Drawing for woodcuts and engraving of copper-plates became the occupation of artists of note, and the talents devoted in Italy to productions of the brush were here monopolized for designs on wood, or on copper. We have thus to account for the comparative unproduc tiveness as painters of Diirer and Holbein, and at the same time to explain the shallowness apparent in many of the later works of Cranach ; but we attribute to the same cause also the tendency in Cranach to neglect effective colour and light and shade for strong contrasts of flat tint. Constant attention to mere contour and to black and white appears to have affected his sight, and caused those curious transitions of pallid light into inky grey which often charac terize his studies of flesh ; whilst the mere outlining of form in black became a natural substitute for modelling and chiaroscuro. There are, no doubt, some few pictures by Cranach in which the flesh-tints display brightness and enamelled surface, but they are quite exceptional. As a composer Cranach was not greatly gifted. His ideal of the human shape was low ; but he showed some freshness in the delineation of incident, though he not unfrequently bordered on coarseness. His copper-plates and woodcuts are certainly the best outcome 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 (1509). It is curious to watch the changes which mark the development of his instincts as an artist during the struggles of the Reformation. At first we find him painting Madonnas. His first woodcut (1505) represents the Virgin and three saints in prayer before a crucifix. Later on lie composes the marriage of St Catherine, a series of mar tyrdoms, and scenes from the Passion. After 1517 he illus- 