THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Edward Rothestein
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| Lucas Cranach the Elder’s ‘Christ and Mary’ (c. 1516–20) PHOTO: FOUNDATION SCHLOSS FRIEDENSTEIN GOTHA |
Sometime around Oct. 31, 1517, the Western world changed. Before, saints and spectacle were the subjects of religious art; after, intimacy and individualism reigned. Such were the transformations associated with Martin Luther (1483-1546) nailing his 95 Theses to a church door in Wittenberg (now in Germany). And it is in anticipation of that event’s 500th anniversary and the Protestant Reformation that followed that two major exhibitions have been mounted: “
Word and Image: Martin Luther’s Reformation” at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York and “
Martin Luther: Art and the Reformation” at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. (A third,
more modest exhibition is in Atlanta at the Pitts Theology Library.) [
link]
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| Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses (broadside) PHOTO: ÖSTERREICHISCHES STAATSARCHIV/HAUS-, HOF- UND STAATSARCHIV |
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