The Serpent and the Lamb
Cranach, Luther and the Making of the Reformation
Steven Ozment (View Bio)
Yale University Press, 2012
This compelling book retells and revises the story of the German Renaissance and Reformation through the lives of two controversial men of the sixteenth century: the Saxon court painter Lucas Cranach (the Serpent) and the Wittenberg monk-turned-reformer Martin Luther (the Lamb). Contemporaries and friends—each was godfather to the other’s children—Cranach and Luther were very different Germans, yet their collaborative successes merged art and religion into a revolutionary force that became the Protestant Reformation. Steven Ozment reprises the lives and works of Cranach (1472–1553) and Luther (1483–1546) in this generously illustrated book. He contends that Cranach's new art and Luther's oratory released a barrage of criticism upon the Vatican, the force of which secured a new freedom of faith and pluralism of religion in the Western world. Between Luther's pulpit praise of the sex drive within the divine estate of marriage and Cranach's parade of strong, lithe women, a new romantic, familial consciousness was born. The "Cranach woman" and the "Lutheran household"—both products of the merged Renaissance and Reformation worlds—evoked a new organization of society and foretold a new direction for Germany.
"Ozment is determined to strip away the varnishes of 'a dark historiography' from Cranach and the early Reformation in order to reveal the artist standing in full light next to Martin Luther, not in any way obscured by his shadow. In this fascinating biography, it is not so much the influence of the Reformation on the arts that matters, but rather Cranach’s profound contributions to Reformation politics and culture. Ozment makes a bold claim for the transformative force of Cranach’s art." — David H. Price, author of Albrecht Dürer’s Renaissance
"Ozment examines the friendship of the painter Lucas Cranach the Elder and Martin Luther as it pertains to the Protestant Reformation. What he has produced is a look at Cranach's life and art that, necessarily, includes Cranach's working and personal relationship with Luther. The two came to know each other when Cranach was commissioned to paint a portrait of Luther in 1520. That same year, Cranach's co-owned printing house began publishing tracts and biblical translations by Luther, and these joint ventures merit a chapter. Cranach's famous nudes are discussed as reflections of Luther's acknowledgment of God's gift of sexuality to humankind, but the focus is always on Cranach. Ozment does a commendable job of chronicling Cranach's life and examining his art, with black-and-white reproductions adjacent to his coverage and color plates in the center of the work. Based on published sources, but with Ozment's own new interpretations, this should prove of interest to those studying Reformation art and belief. Despite lacking a sharp focus on Luther, the book also presents a side of the primary Protestant that is worthy of study." — Library Journal
