Minnesota hosts Lucas Cranach the Elder's visual vocabulary for the Christian path

BE STILL & KNOW
By Ernest Disney-Britton

Detail of Lucas Cranach the Elder's "Martin Luther and Katharina von Bora," 1529.

Last month I was in Minnesota, and I took a peek at the “Martin Luther: Art and Reformation” at the Minneapolis Art Institute featuring sixteen paintings from the Lucas Cranach the Elder’s studio. The exhibition is part of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s “Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences.” Lucas Cranach was a close friend of Martin Luther," who The Guardian newspaper described as having “more or less singlehandedly invented the visual vocabulary for Luther’s rebellion against the Catholic church.” The exhibition is rich with allegories supporting Luther’s belief in faith as the path to salvation, versus my Roman Catholic path of indulgences. [More]