The Reformation and Art in Germany - five online talks by Dr Ulrike Ziegler

Some of the most ground-breaking events in Luther’s life – and of the Reformation – are mirrored in the portraits made of him emanating from the workshop of Lucas Cranach. The close ties between the two men and their families predestined Cranach to become Martin Luther’s chief portraitist and painter-biographer. From Luther’s days as an Augustinian monk or Knight George, from Doctor Luther to the husband and family man, every important step is reflected in painting and more importantly, in print, by Cranach thus putting the reformer on par with the celebrities of the Holy Roman Empire.

The denominational disputes of the Reformation found their expression in propagandistic broadsheets published by Protestants and Catholics alike. Thousands of images were designed to glorify the position of each side and to demonise their opponents. Lutheran propaganda mainly focused on anti-papal messages, while Catholics used the description of Luther as the antichrist as much as the Lutherans did of the Pope. Fuelled by the invention of the printing press and inexpensive paper, printers and preachers could produce pamphlets that even day labourers could afford and also understand, as texts were printed in High German rather than in Latin.

Luther did not condemn the use of images, only the production of devotional artworks. As long as art had a didactic purpose and helped disseminate the Christian doctrine, it was acceptable. He collaborated with Lucas Cranach the Elder to create a specifically Lutheran art. Furthermore, Catholic churches appropriated for the Lutheran service soon proved to be viewed as an interim solution; as early as 1544, Luther consecrated the new chapel of the Electoral palace in Torgau as one of the first purpose-built Protestant churches.

The religious turmoil of the Reformation era coincided with a period of social unrest. As a means of expressing their grievances, peasants invoked Luther’s writings, especially his seminal paper “On the Freedom of a Christian” to justify and add weight to their cause. Luther himself did not support the peasants’ revolt, which culminated in the brutally suppressed Peasants’ War of 1524-25. The Schmalkaldic League evolved as a defensive alliance of Protestant territories of the Holy Roman Empire. Portrait cycles of the Protestant princes, as well as prints showcasing important incidents of the Peasant War and the Schmalkadic League, impressively illustrate the first military conflicts provoked by the Reformation.

The military conflicts reached their zenith in the Schmalkaldic War in which Emperor Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire triumphed. For the Imperial Diet that ensued, he summoned his court artist Titian to Augsburg. Also present was the Saxon Elector, John Frederick I, Charles’s prisoner of war, together with his court artist, Lucas Cranach. This unique meeting of princes and painters in Augsburg led to a series of famous paintings portraying not only the protagonists but also their splendid suits of armour, which are works of art in themselves.