Why Are We by All Creatures Waited on?

P ainter, engraver, designer of woodcuts, Lucas Cranach the Elder lived and worked during the last part of the Renaissance and embodied the integrative qualities valued by his age. In addition to accomplished artist, he was a successful entrepreneur, civic leader, and brilliant inventor. Among other innovations, he is credited with infl uencing the Danube school, a circle of painters along the Danube Valley, known for their advanced painterly style, printmak-ing, and etching; for early printing of woodcuts in color; for the full length portrait as an independent art form; and for various techniques intended to speed up painting and standardize technical processes. Cranach's early years and travels are sketchy. He was born in Germany's Upper Franconia, the small town of Kro-nach, from which he took his name. He probably received the fi rst art training from his father, the painter Hans Maler. A contemporary of two major artists from Germany, Mat-thias Grünewald and Albrecht Dürer, Cranach competed with them on local projects and patronage and often turned especially to Dürer's work for inspiration. At age 30, he moved to Vienna, where he made infl uential associations with local humanists and painted two of his fi nest portraits. Some religious works showing appreciation of the beauty of nature, a characteristic of the Danube School, also date from this period. Soon he moved to Wittenberg to serve as court painter to Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, a position he retained for life under various electors. Cranach became " one of the wealthiest burghers in Wittenberg. " He was elected city councilman several times and mayor twice, while fully engaged in painting, engraving , and directing all aesthetic needs of the court. He established and ran a prosperous studio that produced copies of his best works and all manner of decorative arts, from coin designs for the electorate to furniture. His sons, Hans and Lucas Cranach the Younger, both artists, worked in this studio and used his style so successfully that it is still diffi cult to fully authenticate what was done by his hand alone. The enterprise continued for decades after his death. His business acumen was such that he also ran a publishing press and had licenses to sell wine and own an apothecary. Cranach's greatest artistic contribution was his landscapes , which included elaborately detailed animals. He added to period art and Dürer's naturalism an element of fantasy …