1506
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Temptation of St. Anthony is a 1506 by Lucas Cranach the Elder, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a wild crowd of demons—bat wings, pig snouts, claws—swarming a bearded man in a brown robe. He kneels on rocky ground, hands folded in prayer, while the creatures pull at his clothes and hair. The painting copies the demons from an earlier print, but the rolling hills and tiny castle in the background are pure Cranach. The castle might even be a real monastery where the artist’s friend worked. To see how other artists painted the same story, look up chiaroscuro.
The group of demonic figures attacking Saint Anthony was inspired by the Martin Schongauer engraving of the same subject from about 1475, though the extensive landscape is a fine example of Cranach's individual style. The Temptation of Saint Anthony has possible connections to the Chancellor of Wittenberg University, Goswin von Orsoy (1450-1515), who was also the preceptor of the Antonite monastery at nearby Lichtenburg. The group of buildings in the scene may represent this monastery, which was later destroyed; the monastery also owned a chapel in Wittenberg where there was an altarpiece of…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Lucas Cranach the Elder was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving.
See the richer artist page
