What a privilege to go on a Winter afternoon, in Paris, to a Museum to visit an exhibition exclusively dedicated to Cranach! And it seems I'm not the only one... I arrive around 5 pm on a Monday and there's a long line of people waiting patiently outside... I thought that Lucas Cranach l'Ancien was a German artist (even if the Germany of the 16th Century barely existed as a country) few people knew. The exhibit at the Musée de Luxembourg is the very first dedicated to Cranach, although there's 6 paintings of his at the Louvre and they recently organized a public fundraising so that the Museum could buy "Trois Graces," another marvelous work by this incredible artist.
So back to Monday's afternoon, luckily I had bought and printed my tickets through Fnac's site, so I was able to get inside fast, followed by the look of "hatred" of all those waiting outside in the cold.
I loved the exhibit a lot, I was charmed by the erotism of his nudes, the definition of the colors (reds, oranges, greens), his almost pre-surrealist style, the eternal beauty of the women he painted... with those serene faces, blond hair, porcelain skin, small bust and round hips...
To think that Cranach was a friend of Luther, lived in Friedrich the Wise's court and faced a ferocious competition with Albrecht Dürer, another master of the time. In fact he usually used Durer's work as inspiration: there are two or three of his paintings to compare.
It's so stupendous that such masterpieces can endure so many centuries and provoke so many feelings on us...
A fun detail... the American producers of "Desperate Housewives," in California, used one of Cranach paintings for the opening titles... that of Adan and Eve...
Cranach would have never imagined it would be so, never ever...
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