The fountain of youth

The fountain of youth
	Lucas Cranach the Elder , 1546
	Oil on linden wood
	120.6 x 186.1 cm
	Gemäldegalerie , Berlin

The Fountain of Youth is a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder from 1546.

It shows a fountain of youth in which older women, but not men, bathe, are rejuvenated and finally enjoy themselves with music, dancing and good food. In this fairytale picture, Cranach depicts in many details the real bathing culture of the Middle Ages, which was based on the belief that certain baths could heal and rejuvenate. After the bath, sensual pleasures were a part of it. The picture belonged to the holdings of the former Prussian royal palaces and is now in the permanent exhibition Gemäldegalerie of the State Museums in Berlin .

Image content and interpretation

detail

In the background of the picture is a fantastic, rocky landscape with unreal perspectives and proportions, with a miniature castle on a boulder, a medieval town view and a stone arch bridge over a river, on the right a mighty mountain range and on the horizon lush fields and fruit trees. On the left the barren rocks, symbolizing the arduous age of women; on the right the blossoming as a metaphor for the fertile youth. In the center of the basin there is a column crowned with the figures of Venus and Cupid as a water dispenser , which indicates that this bath serves to renew the power of love.

On the left edge of the picture frail and old women are brought up from the barren mountain landscape and also carried, can be undressed, step into a water basin, which they leave on the right edge, healed and rejuvenated. A gallant young man then asks her to re-dress in a tent so that she can indulge in sensual pleasures. In the front right in the bushes a couple is enjoying themselves, and in the background people dance and dine to the music. Lucas Cranach the Elder did not only allow old women to be erotic in this picture. In his picture Unequal Couple around 1520/22, today in the Szépművészeti Múzeum Budapest, he depicts an old woman who gives a young man money for an erotic adventure.

Several ironic and frivolous allusions can be seen in the picture, such as the bespectacled man in a red coat with a book on the left at the edge of the pool, it could be a doctor examining a naked old woman before she gets into the water. Two women wrapped in scarves, one on the left, the other on the lower edge of the pool, may hesitate with doubts whether a rejuvenated life is worth striving for at all.

The fact that only women visit this pool is explained by the belief that old men automatically rejuvenate themselves when dealing with young women. But in reality such fountains of youth were also visited by men who hoped for a cure . In Cranach's picture all men are depicted as young, gallant and advantageous, but the old women are ugly and unattractive. Spread across the entire picture, Cranach's figures naturally tell the individual stages of the supernatural transformation. It is the search for paradise . The picture shows a man's dream .

When drinking and bathing, water has healing powers, which easily led to the belief in more comprehensive effects of water, as the baptismal rites of the religions also show. The fountain of youth was a popular narrative and pictorial motif in the Middle Ages, especially in France. It offered many opportunities for nudes and genre scenes.

The depiction of old, naked women was unusual in the art of that time. Only young bodies were painted bare. The ideal of beauty for women at that time consisted of a bulging belly, round shapes without pubic hair, high breasts with small nipples and yellow-blonde hair. So with Cranach, too, largely de-sexualized, childlike, virginal bodies emerged according to the taste of the times.

The attribution of the picture is not entirely clear. The research names both the father Lucas Cranach the Elder. Ä. as well as his son as author. It has recently been assigned to the father's old work, with other employees of the Cranach workshop also involved in its execution. The picture was made to order, but who the client was is unknown.

The picture is in landscape format with the dimensions 120.6 × 186.1 cm in oil painting on a linden wood panel. It bears the snake sign with birds flying from Cranach's workshop and the year 1546 in the lower center .

Provenance and picture history

The picture was completed in 1546. This is secured by the artist's signature (bottom center). Until 1829/1830 the fountain of youth was part of the administration of the royal palaces. Then it came to the Royal Museum (today Altes Museum ) and now hangs in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie.

Historical background

In the ancient Roman saga about the nymph Iuturna , the Juturna spring is already mentioned as healing. Medieval medicine was based on the ancient doctrine of the four juices , but the doctors could not cure the ailments of old and sick people. People therefore tended to have a strong belief in divine miracles . In several places there were wells and baths whose waters were said to have healing properties. Business-minded communities were also able to market their baths, especially for the rich, in such a way that baths such as Gastein , Pyrmont or Baden became fashionable at times .

Cranach painted his picture at the age of 74, so he was thoroughly affected by the suffering of old age. He idealized the fountain of youth in his picture into the legendary, because most people doubted that old women would really become young girls, despite their belief in miracles. The motif of renewal through baptism in water runs through the entire art of the Middle Ages, for example in Cranach's contemporary Hans Sachs , who described the fountain of youth in his master song Der junkprunn from 1548.

Exhibitions (selection)

Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach dJ paintings, drawings, graphics. From April to June 1937 in the Deutsches Museum Berlin

literature

Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub: The fountain of youth, 1549. (= The art letter. 4). Mann, Berlin around 1943, OCLC 260090865 ( online ).
Excerpt from the "Fountain of Youth of Lukas Cranach" In: You: cultural monthly. Volume 6, 1946, Issue 9, doi: 10.5169 / seals-289826 . (Two enlarged excerpts on the following pages)
Elena Likhovodova: The search for earthly paradise in the “Fountain of Youth ” by L. Cranach the Elder . Ä. (= Dissertation Free University of Berlin). Berlin 2000/2001, OCLC 638132208 .

Web links

Commons : The Fountain of Youth - Collection of Images

The fountain of youth in SMB Digital

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c Wilhelm H. Koehler: The fountain of youth. In: SMB Digital. Retrieved July 14, 2020 .

↑ Dierk Spreen: The Brief History of the Time Machine. ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on dierkspreen.de (PDF; published in: Quarre Merkur 89/90. 1999, No. 36. pp. 111–113.) @1@ 2

↑ 5 00 years - Lucas Cranach the Elder J. on 1000-years-kronach-ev.de

^ Catalog of the Gemäldegalerie Berlin. Berlin-Dahlem 1975, p. 118 f.

^ Cranach Digital Archive

↑ Henning Bock , Irene Geismeier, Rainald Grosshans, Jan Kelch, Wilhelm H. Köhler, Rainer Michaelis, Hannelore Vorteilmann, Erich Schleier : Gemäldegalerie Berlin. Complete directory. National Museums in Berlin, Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-88609-290-9 .

↑ Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen: Masterpieces in detail. Volume 1. Taschen , Cologne 2011, ISBN 3-8228-2098-9 , p. 251 ff.

↑ Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger ( Memento of the original from September 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on bam-portal.de and Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub: Der Jungbrunnen, 1549. S. 3.

[:0-1] Wilhelm H. Koehler: The fountain of youth. In: SMB Digital. Retrieved July 14, 2020 .