Unburned Luther

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The unburned Luther

As Unburned Luther one is painting from the 16th century referred to the Martin Luther represents. It was once on the facade of Luther's birthplace in Eisleben .

description

The painting is done with oil paints on a wooden panel that is 99 cm high and 55 cm wide. It is connected to a dark wooden frame, which was supposed to offer protection from the weather on the sides and above for the painting, which was originally installed outdoors, and is 14.5 cm deep. In the upper part of this frame there is an inscription, the text of which, arranged in three lines, reads:

"ANNO 1483. IS DOCTOR. MAR
TINUS LUHTER. [Sic!] IN THE GE
BORN HOUSE. AND TO S PETER. THROWED. "

The painting shows Martin Luther in full figure. He wears a dark coat that falls almost to his feet over a red piece of clothing with a white collar, plus dark shoes with relatively light brown soles. The background is largely kept in blue-gray tones and merges below Luther's knee level with the suggestion of a landscape in a brownish green. This low horizon line makes Luther appear very tall when viewed from a frog's perspective . In the upper left corner the Luther rose can be seen in a red coat of arms, on the right edge of the picture there is a crucifix with the inscription INRI at the head of the crucified. The faces of the two sitters are at eye level. The figure of Christ is about half the size of Luther's body, so that his feet are at the same height as Luther's hands, which he has put together in front of his body and in which he is holding a small brown book.

The lower text panel

Another plaque is attached below the painting; it is rectangular and significantly wider than the actual painting and contains the following text in the first two lines:

"HOSTIS. HE AT. DAD. SOCIORUM. PESTIS. ET HUIUS
VOX. MEA CUM. SCRIPTIS. NIL NISI. CHRIST. ERAT. "

The text is written in black on a gray-beige background, as is the case with the upper inscription. Traces of an earlier, overpainted inscription can be seen particularly well in the second line. In the third line there is a reference to a renovation or renewal, which probably relates to the house.

type

Cranach the Elder J .: Portrait of Luther, dated 1546, in the Schwerin Museum

The type of representation without the added cross corresponds to the full-length, bareheaded Luther portraits from the workshop of Cranach the Younger , as they were created as paintings from the year the Reformer died and probably go back to a portrait taken during Luther's lifetime in 1540. The type of portrait, which shows Luther in a black scholarly coat, with a red petticoat and white collar, with an open or closed book in his hands, became popular for a long time after Luther's death. Corresponding portraits can be found u. a. in the State Museum in Schwerin (dated 1546), in the Meißner Dom , in the cathedral in Schwerin (dated 1648) and in the Wittenberg Castle Church (18th century). The representation on the epitaph for Martin Luther also belongs to the same type . A depiction dated 1575, in which Luther is facing left instead of right, is in the art collections of Veste Coburg . In this type of representation in official clothing and with a Bible, Johannes Ficker sees the meaning of Luther as the father of the church, which dominates over the other portraits of Luther's age, which show him as a professor in fur.

History and reception

The painting was probably created in 1583 by an Eisleber painter, whose name is not known, and placed above the front door of Luther's birthplace.

Harald Meller sees the Eisleber depiction as a testimony “to the early appreciation and monumentalization of the Eisleber Luther sites”. The picture survived the city fire in 1689, which destroyed Luther's birthplace, unscathed, but this is not due to a miracle , but to the fact that at the time of the fire it was no longer in its original location: the magistrate of the The city of Eisleben had the picture removed shortly before the fire, because at that time there was a pub in the house and the dignity of the reformer was seen to be diminished. Only after the house was rebuilt was the portrait of Luther hung on the facade of the building again in 1693. It is now under inventory number GH G 2238 in the Eisleben Birthplace Museum of the Luther Memorials Foundation in Saxony-Anhalt .

The fact that the portrait was preserved, but not the original building on which it had once hung, soon led to the formation of legends and also to false conclusions about the fate of Luther's birthplace. At times it was claimed that the entire building had been spared the fire. The theory that only the first floor, where the Luther family had stayed for a few weeks, was not burned, was also put into circulation. Archaeological and architectural studies of the building refuted these claims. It can only be seen as certain that the building's basement survived the fire and therefore existed in Luther's time.

The depiction of the painting in Schöpfer's Lutherus non combustus ; note the changed direction of Luther's gaze compared to the photographed painting. The lower tablet is shown narrower than it currently shows.

In 1717 the work Lutherus non combustus sive historica enarratio de DM Luthero eiusque imagine by Justus Schöpffer was published . He listed all sorts of incidents from Luther's life in which he was threatened by real or imagined fire and was saved every time. This includes the chapter De Luthero ab igne infernali liberato (About Luther Saved from Hellfire) , which describes, among other things, how Luther reacted to hateful writings in which he had already been pronounced dead. "Otherwise do it gently on my right kneecap and on my left heel / that the Teuffel and his scales / Pope and Papists / are so heartily hostile to me", Luther's reply to the hate writings is quoted. The following eighth chapter of Schöpffer's work also conjures up the danger of fire and the salvation of the real Luther; it bears the title De Luthero ex ignis periculo Wormatiae in Comitiis , singulari & provida Dei cura feliciter erepto (About Luther, who was happily snatched from the fire danger in Worms at the Reichstag through the unique and preventive effort of God) . Here, too, Luther is quoted extensively, among other things with the sentence: “If they made a fire right away in Worms / that bit into the sky between Wittenberg and Worms / I wanted to appear there in the name of the Lord / and to Behemoth in kick his mouth between his toes [...] ”Finally, the tenth and last chapter of the book deals with writings and portraits of Luther, which emerged from various fire disasters in a miraculous way or through the intervention of God, undamaged also the portrait of Luther's birthplace in Eisleben. Schöpffer goes into a postscript on the fact that the house was rebuilt in 1693, but the beginning of the section contains the statement that the old house remained almost intact during the city fire ("In stupendis autem illis incendiis Domus B. Lutheri in qua Islebiae natus est Deo ita dirigente, ut plurimum illaesa mansit [...] ") and was preserved by God's providence like a palladion of ice life ; Likewise, the portrait of Luther was miraculously unaffected by the flames ("miraculose ab ignis flamma intacta mansit").

In the decades that followed, the portrait was repeatedly associated with this and other miracle stories. In Johann Georg Theodor Grässes collection of sagas one can find the sentence: “This picture was in the upper room during the last fire; When the place of the fire was searched after the fire had been extinguished, the same was found in the burned-out upper floor completely intact and not touched by fire. By the way, even when the plague raged in Eisleben and no house was freed from it, the same house remained uninfected. "

Stefan Laube summarized: "So the intact artefacts presented as divine symbols propaganda media towards the opponents of the Reformation [...] Protestants thus took up a topos that was also common in the medieval cult of relics , as the ordeal was considered a means, to determine whether relics were authentic, because only false relics were burned [...] On the other hand, they could refer to the Old Testament , to the legend of Moses , at the center of which is a burning bush that did not dissolve into ashes . " He also made it clear, however, that "central aspects of the old veneration of saints , which Martin Luther decidedly rejected, were repeated in his own person" and "the image could develop into a cult thing even among them [= the Lutherans] ", for which he then among other things cited the unburned Luther portrait in Eisleben as evidence. Regarding Luther's own attitude towards incidents that were interpreted as miracles or signs of God, Laube writes: "Luther himself by no means destroyed the belief in miracles, even if he also negatively charged it as an appearance caused by evil or the devil ."

Web links

Commons : Unburned Luther  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Harald Meller (ed.), Fundsache Luther. Archaeologists in the footsteps of the reformer (= companion volume to the state exhibition Fundsache Luther - Archaeologists in the footsteps of the reformer in the State Museum for Prehistory Halle (Saale) from October 31, 2008 to April 26, 2009), Stuttgart (Theiss) undated, ISBN 978-3-8062-2201-2 , p. 161
  2. ↑ Even if, according to Meller's photography, it could be a box, a book corresponds to the usual attributes attached to Luther portraits since the time of his life, cf. Johannes Ficker: The portraits of Luther from the time of his life , in Luther-Jahrbuch 1934, pp. 103-162.
  3. ↑ Kristina Hegner: Art of the Renaissance , State Museum Schwerin, Schwerin 1990, No. 13.
  4. ^ Schwerin, State Museum ( Güstrow Castle Branch ), Inv. No. G 864.
  5. ↑ Cornelius Gurlitt : Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments in Saxony. Volume 41: Amtshauptmannschaft Meißen-Land , Dresden 1923, p. 108.
  6. ^ Bernhard Gruhl: The Castle Church in Lutherstadt Wittenberg , Regensburg 2006, ISBN 978-3795417987 , p. 56.
  7. ^ Coburg, Art Collections of the Veste Coburg, inventory no. M.304.
  8. ↑ Johannes Ficker: The portraits of Luther from the time of his life , in: Luther-Jahrbuch 1934, pp. 103-162.
  9. ↑ Günter Schuchardt (Ed.): Cranach, Luther and the portraits. Thuringian Theme Year "Image and Message" , Regensburg 2015, ISBN 978-3795429775 , pp. 45–47.
  10. ↑ A digital copy of the complete plant can be found on vd18.de .
  11. ↑ Carola Jäggi, Jörn Staecker: Archeology of the Reformation: Studies on the effects of the change of denomination on the material culture . Walter de Gruyter, 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019513-2 , p. 438 f.
  12. ^ Johann Georg Theodor Grasse, Book of Legends of the Prussian State 1–2 , Volume 1, Glogau 1868/71, p. 386 ( digitized version )
  13. ↑ a b Stefan Laube: From the relic to the thing: Holy place - Wunderkammer - Museum . Walter de Gruyter, January 1, 2011, ISBN 978-3-05-004928-1 , p. 216.
  14. ^ Stefan Laube: From the relic to the thing: Holy place - Wunderkammer - Museum . Walter de Gruyter, January 1, 2011, ISBN 978-3-05-004928-1 , p. 211.
  15. ^ Stefan Laube: From the relic to the thing: Holy place - Wunderkammer - Museum . Walter de Gruyter, January 1, 2011, ISBN 978-3-05-004928-1 , p. 214.