Cranach
was famous for the speed at which he worked (on his tomb he was described as
'Pictor celerrimus' swiftest of painters) and his output was enormous. His
early paintings, such as The Penance of St Jerome and The Rest on the Flight
into Egypt, show more individuality of touch than his later works, but even
when he was running what was virtually a picture factory at the height of his
very successful career, he was such a skilled manager and craftsman that his
standards remained high.
He
tackled most subjects - from conventional religious subjects such as The Virgin
of the Grapes to courtly commissions such as The Stag Hunt, and from mythologies
such as The Judgement of Paris to humorous moralizing scenes such as The Fee.
Although he excelled in so many fields, it is perhaps as a painter of alluring
women that he is most memorable. Judging from the number of copies and
versions, the Reclining Water Nymph and Judith were two subjects his
contemporaries demanded continually.
The
great scholar St Jerome (342-420) spent four years as a hermit in the desert,
where he said he had 'only the scorpions and wild beasts for company'. Like
many other ascetic saints (notably St Anthony), he had vivid sexual
hallucinations, and he described how he would beat his chest until he had
overcome them. He does not mention that he used a stone to chastise himself,
but it became a convention to portray him holding one. 
The
subject of The Rest on the Flight into Egypt gave artists the opportunity to
portray the Holy Family in a landscape setting. Cranach was particularly
interested in landscape early in his career, and here created an almost
fairytale atmosphere with the lush foliage and brilliant, luminous colours.
This is Cranach's earliest signed work - his monogram is on a stone in the
foreground.
The
grape was a common symbol in medieval and Renaissance painting. It symbolized
the wine of the Eucharist and therefore the blood of Christ. St Augustine wrote
'Jesus is the grape of the Promised Land, the bunch that has been put under the
wine-press', by which he meant that Christ's blood would be spilt.
Judith
was a Jewish biblical heroine who infiltrated the camp of Holofernes, an
Assyrian general who was besieging her city. She charmed him, got him drunk and
then beheaded him. The story was seen as symbolizing the triumph of virtue over
vice, but also often served as a pretext, as here, to paint a beautifully
seductive woman.
Hunting
was a favourite pursuit of noblemen and Cranach painted several pictures of the
subject for his courtly patrons. This one shows the Emperor Maximilian I and
the Electors Frederick the Wise and John the Steadfast among the hunters.
Neither 1Maximilian nor Frederick were alive at the time the picture was
painted, so it was probably commissioned by John the Steadfast. The high
viewpoint has allowed Cranach to set out the various incidents of the hunt with
almost comic-strip clarity.
In the
foreground, God confronts Adam and Eve after they have eaten the forbidden
fruit, and in the background Cranach has shown various other scenes from the
Genesis narrative. From right to left, they are: the Creation of Adam, the
Temptation, the Creation of Eve, the Discovery of the Sinners and the Expulsion
from Paradise. Cranach was a brilliant painter of animals and seems to have
enjoyed himself portraying the beasts in the Garden of Eden here, particularly
the delightful bears.
Writer - Marshall Cavendish
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