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The men unfortunately have not become young, and retain their grey beards. The picture is of the year 1546, the seventy-fourth of Cranach's age. ALBERT ALTDORFER was born 1488 at Altdorf, near Landshuth, in Bavaria, and settled at Ratisbon, where he died 1528.
I seem to see her conceiving the bold design she will work the doctor's likeness. She asks Magdalen Cranach's opinion, and Magdalen asks Lucas's, and there is a deal of discussion, and Lucas makes wise suggestions. In the course of many fireside chats, the thing grows. Philip and his Kate, dropping in, are shown it.
But he disapproved of one of Cranach's caricatures, as insulting to woman. We have seen already what degree of importance Luther attached to a Council appointed by the Pope. The Protestants could not, of course, consent to submit to the one at Trent.
There is the true key of Van Dyck. He met Rubens as a portraitist and took no odds of him. Lucas Cranach's Adam and Eve is a variation of the picture in the Brussels gallery.
The next morning the face was painted by an Eisleben artist, and the morning after that by Lucas Fortenagel of Helle. Fortenagel's portrait is no doubt a foundation of all those which we find in several places under Cranach's name, and which no doubt really came from Cranach's studio. The Elector John Frederick at once insisted that the mortal remains of Luther should rest at Wittenberg.
The pathos which later portraits have often given to his countenance is not apparent in the earlier ones, but rather an expression of melancholy. The deep glow and energy of his spirit, which even Cranach's pencil has failed wholly to represent, seems to have found chief expression in his dark eyes.
There a cast was taken in wax, which is preserved in the library of the church; the original features, however, having been altered by putting in the eyes and improving the shape of the mouth. To complete our picture of Luther's outward appearance, we have in this cast the remarkably strong brow, which in Cranach's portraits of Luther often recedes out of all proportion in his upturned face.
Luther took a genuine pleasure in Cranach's art, and the latter, in his turn, soon employed it in the service of the Reformation.
If Cranach's portrait of her is to be trusted, she was not remarkable for beauty or any outward attraction. But she was a healthy, strong, frank and true German woman.
Lucas Cranach's L'Amour is one of his Virgins transposed to the mythological key. We have barely indicated the richness of this collection, in which, of course, Rubens plays first fiddle rather the full orchestra. And with what sonority and luminosity!
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