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Lucas Cranach, an artist of the same generation as Dürer, was the painter of the Reformation. A personal friend of Melanchthon and Luther, he was involved in Reformist movements although this did not in any way prevent him from painting religious works for Catholic clients, such as Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg and members of the House of Saxony.
Cranach's ideal of feminine beauty, fully set out in his mythological paintings of Venus and nymphs, is far from the classical norms then prevailing in Italy with regard to his treatment of the nude and of the female body. His female figures have an expressiveness and elegant sensuality, including a note of eroticism, which is quite different to the Italian mode. Cranach repeated his figure types throughout his career, creating a distinctive style and look which marked his entire oeuvre.
The artist's religious painting enjoyed great success in its time. Some of the characteristics which ensured its widespared acceptance can be seen in the present Virgin and Child, generally dated to the first decade of the sixteenth century. The sweetly modelled and contoured Virgin's face recalls Leonardo's sfumato handling. Techniques such as this, used to soften the forms, appear in Cranach's work around 1509 and 1510, following a trip to the Low Countries when he had the chance to study Italian art at the court of Margaret of Austria. An identical way of modelling volume is found in two important works of this period: the Salome in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, and the Venus and Cupid in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg.
Behind the figures in the present painting is a landscape, an aspect of painting which was fundamental to Cranach from the earliest years of his career, and in which he sowed the seeds for the development of the later Danube School of landscape painters. The landscape in this painting uses a high viewpoint and recedes through a large wood which ends in a range of mountains painted in an evocative range of blues which encourages the eye to continue into depth. The castle on the top of the mountain at the right and the pine tree on the left are frequently recurring motifs in Cranach's work which he used in various other Virgin and Child compositions of around 1518. The bunch of grapes which the Virgin is holding for the Child to eat has been linked to the Eucharist and with Christ's role as Redeemer. The work is signed on the parapet at the left with the winged serpent. This emblem was granted to Cranach for use on his coat of arms in 1508 by the Elector of Saxony. Following the death of his son Hans, Cranach modified the wings.
Mar Borobia
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