Judith with two companions (Lucas Cranach the Elder)

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Judith with two companions, 1525

Judith with two companions is the title of a picture by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Ä. , which is now in the Rau collection of the UNICEF Germany Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck .

description

The painting is a tondo on wood, the diameter is 14.6 cm. The round picture is set in a square frame.

In contrast to the other, mostly larger Judith pictures of the Cranach circle, the biblical heroine Judith is shown symmetrically in half-length in the tondo of the Rau collection, accompanied by two servants. Judith in the middle of the trio holds the sword high with her little finger carefully spread apart and with her left hand grabs the severed head of Holofernes by the forelock. While one of her companions lowers her gaze to the head of the slain with a lovely smile, the other's gaze wanders into the far distance.

The ladies are dressed almost identically. All wear elaborately cut dresses made of heavy red and black fabric, have a deep neckline , so that the girlish, round breasts tied up by a tight bodice can be effectively highlighted. Close-fitting collars decorated with pearl jewelry direct the beholder's gaze to the young faces with rosy cheeks and attractively protruding lower lips.

Judith stands out from her companions by the fashionable slit sleeves of her dress, from which the white silk of the underwear oozes in abundance, as well as by a head of hair elaborately coiffed with pearl netting and a flat red hat with a wide brim, which is in an oblique position on the hairstyle sitting, the whole group "crowns". The two companions only wear a simple ribbon in their hair, their hair falls in loose waves on their backs.

Cranach's signature - the winged snake - and the date 1525 are barely visible in the flowing hair of Judith's companion on the right outer edge of the picture.

Art historical classification

The small-format round picture from 1525 belongs to the series of mostly undated cabinet pictures that were created in large numbers in the first half of the 16th century in the Cranach workshop. The share of the workshop and of Cranach himself in the individual pictures is difficult to assess. The buyers of such "cabinet pictures", which in Cranach's productive workshop increasingly gained in eroticism and sensual charisma, were royal courts and the rich bourgeoisie.

Contrary to the increasingly antiquarian tendencies of the time, in which the artists increasingly strive for the historical accuracy of the realities represented, such as clothing, weapons, utensils and architecture, Cranach paints his biblical characters in an anachronistic manner according to contemporary clothing fashion.

The by other artists like selected in time image theme of the story of Judith and Holofernes as an example of a tyrant murder is seen by some art historians in the context of justification Lutheran princes in their rebellion against the Catholic central government. Princes, whose way of life did not always correspond to the Puritan moral concepts of the reformers, could possibly see themselves at least exonerated in a story like that of the beautiful widow Judith from the Old Testament .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ J. Wirth: La réforme luthérinne et l'art. In: Problèmes d'histoire du christianisme, No. 14. 1984. p. 42.

literature

  • Lucas Cranach the Elder Ä. In: Saur. General artist lexicon. Vol. 22, pp. 168-173.
  • Dieter Koepplin and Tilman Falk: Lukas Cranach. Paintings, drawings, prints, volume 2 . Stuttgart / Basel 1976, p. 775, footnote 78 and Fig. 143 on p. 277.
  • Masterpieces from the Rau Collection. Cologne 2000. p. 29.

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