German painter (b. 1472, Kronach, d. 1553, Weimar). German painter and engraver. The son of a painter, he settled in Wittenberg c.1504 and was court painter successively under three electors of Saxony. There he maintained a flourishing workshop and was twice burgomaster. Cranach was a close friend of Martin Luther, whose doctrine he upheld in numerous paintings and woodcuts, and he has been called the painter of the Reformation. He was a rapid and prolific painter, and the work turned out by his studio is uneven in quality. Naïve and fanciful, often awkward in draftsmanship, it has, nonetheless, freshness and originality and a warm, rich palette. His portraits are particularly successful. Among his best-known works are Repose in Egypt (Gemäldgalerie, Staatliche Mus., Berlin-Dahlem); Judgment of Paris (Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe); Adam and Eve (Courtauld Inst., London); and Crucifixion (Weimar). The latter contains figures of Luther and Cranach. His many famous protraits include those of Elector John Frederick and Self-Portrait (Uffizi). Cranach was also an accomplished miniaturist. He produced a few copperplates and designs for woodcuts. His son and pupil Lucas Cranach, the Younger, 1515C86,   Related Paintings of CRANACH, Lucas the Elder :. | Salome hg | Portrait of Martin Luther dfg | Hercules and Omphale | The Fountain of Youth (detail) dyj | Christ and the Adulteress fgh |
Related Artists:
Hans Heysen
Sir Hans Heysen, OBE (8 October 1877 - 2 July 1968) was a well-known German Australian artist. He was particularly recognized for his watercolours of the Australian bush. He won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting a record nine times.
Willem de Zwart
(16 May 1862 The Hague - 11 December 1931 The Hague) was a Dutch painter, engraver, watercolorist, with many connections to the Hague School. Willem De Zwart was born in The Hague on 16 May 1862, the eldest of eight children. His youngest brother, Pieter, would also become a painter. His father painted carriages for a living, and in 1875 the fourteen-year-old Willem was apprenticed to a carriage maker to learn the same trade. In his spare time, he copied prints he found in magazines, and a year later he enrolled in the evening class at the Royal Academy of Visual Art in The Hague. The following year, he was admitted at the studio of Jacob Maris. In the three years that he remained here, it is probable that he got to know many of the leading lights of the Hague School. Maris also sent De Zwart on a journey to the coast, without drawing materials, and had him work out his impressions directly on canvas when he returned to the studio. De Zwart made several copies of works by 16th and 17th century masters in the Mauritshuis. He was most interested in the works of Johannes Vermeer, Paulus Potter, and Rembrandt, but studied paintings by German and Italian masters, as well. Sometimes he produced copies on commission. In this period, he also made detailed studies of animals, concentrating particularly on their legs, heads and snouts. De Zwart developed a fastidious painting style with a sober, predominantly brown palette. Willem de Zwart lived and worked until 1894 in The Hague and from 1900 to 1905 in Amsterdam. His work has a wide range of subjects: landscapes, cityscapes, portraits and still life, rendered in a naturalistic or impressionist style. His work shows affinity with the people and city-oriented Amsterdam Impressionism. In his choice of subjects belonged to the Hague School and in his style and his exuberant use of color to the school of Amsterdam Impressionism. He is also known as the "Hague Breitner" because of the similarity of his work to that of George Hendrik Breitner. He painted his landscapes, figure paintings and still lifes with smooth, bold brushstrokes. De Zwart applied the paint thickly, sometimes straight from the tube, with bright colors, exuberant reds, yellows and blues, giving his paintings special vibrancy.
Johann Gottfried Auerbach
Johann Gottfried Auerbach (October 28, 1697 -August 5, 1753), was an Austrian painter and etcher. Auerbach painted primarily portraits and battle genre works. Some of his works can be found at the Kunsthistorisches Museum.