Cranach: Luther's PR-man

Lucas Cranach the elder was the great mythopoeic painter of the German Reformation. A close friend of Martin Luther, he more or less singlehandedly invented the visual vocabulary for Luther's rebellion against the Catholic church. Cranach charted his friend's evolution from wild-eyed monk to magisterial reformer in a stream of portrait prints and panel paintings. His mass-produced images made Luther's the most familiar face in 16th-century Europe, and became the definitive icons of the new religion. And yet, at the height of his activity as Luther's publicist, he was working equally hard on lucrative commissions from the most powerful Catholic ecclesiastic in Germany: Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, the very man whose blatant sale of indulgences had driven Luther to protest in the first place. Friendship, art and ideological purity were all very well, but for Cranach, business was business.