Review by Matt Lundin
Renowned for his “fast brush,” Cranach managed to keep up with an apparently limitless demand for his work. Well over a thousand paintings bearing his name survive, though many of these were executed by assistants in his workshop. To some, such profligate production suggests a Renaissance artist who sold out, a businessman who catered to all comers, be they evangelical or Catholic, sacred or secular, bourgeois or noble. Cranach may have begun his career in the early 1500s as a worthy rival to Albrecht Dürer. But by the 1530s, detractors contend, the Cranach “painting factory” was churning out shallow, repetitive images—pictures that could be quickly translated into cash or theological talking points.
In The Serpent and the Lamb, Steven Ozment paints a far more compelling portrait of the preeminent Reformation artist.