Lucas Cranach: A-Z

Painter Prince of the Renaissance

Lucas Cranach the Elder created around 500 works during his lifetime. With his portraits of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchton and as court painter to Frederick the Wise, he became one of the most sought-after painters of the Reformation. At the same time, Cranach was the first to translate the Italian Renaissance tradition of the life-size nude into art north of the Alps; his lascivious, barely veiled depiction of Venus, the goddess of love, bears witness to this. On the occasion of the large Cranach exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Austrian writer Teresa Präauer explores the work of this busy prince of painters from A to Z. She focuses not only on Cranach's art, but also on the society that surrounded him, the subjects he painted, and the events that shaped his development.

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553) was one of the most prolific painters, graphic artists and letterpress printers of the German Renaissance. Court painter at the court of the Elector of Saxony since 1505, he devoted himself not only to religious works but also to mythological themes and numerous portraits.

The writer  Teresa Präauer (*1979) studied German literature in Salzburg and Berlin as well as art at Mozarteum Salzburg. She writes novels, essays, and columns. In her tragic-comical artist novel Johnny und Jean (Wallstein, 2016), the painter Cranach played a crucial role.