Law and Gospel (Cranach)

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Law and Gospel, Herzogliches Museum, Gotha, Germany. 82.2 × 118 cm (32.3 × 46.4 in)

Law and Gospel (or Law and Grace) is one of a number of thematically linked panel paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder from about 1529. The paintings, intended to illustrate Lutheran ideas of salvation for viewers who already carried some knowledge of the faith, are exemplars of didactic Lutheran Merkbilder, which were simple illustrations of Christian doctrine.

Cranach probably drew on input from his lifelong friend Martin Luther, when designing the imagery for the Protestant concept of Law and Gospel. The earliest forms of the picture are the panels in Gotha, Germany and the National Gallery in Prague; the Gotha panel is thought to be earlier. These paintings were the basis for similar works both by Cranach and by later artists in other media, including prints, relief sculptures and furnishings.

Description

The left and right "wings" of the paintings contrast Lutheran belief on the source of salvation with other theologies. "Law", or the Old Covenant, is symbolized on the left, and "Gospel" or "Grace" on the right. The panels illustrate the Lutheran idea that Law is not sufficient for salvation, but Gospel is. As Luther wrote in 1522:

The Law is the Word in which God teaches and tells us what we are to do and not to do, as in the Ten Commandments. Now wherever human nature is alone, without the grace of God, the Law cannot be kept, because since Adam's fall in Paradise man is corrupt and has nothing but a wicked desire to sin... The other Word of God is not Law or commandment, nor does it require anything of us; but after the first Word, that of the Law, has done this work and distressful misery and poverty have been produced in the heart, God comes and offers His lovely, living Word, and promises, pledges, and obligates Himself to give grace and help, that we may get out of this misery and that all sins not only be forgiven but also blotted out... See, this divine promise of His grace and of the forgiveness of sin is properly called Gospel."

The halves of the design can therefore be seen as illustrating opposing theology—Donald Ehresmann wrote in 1967, "The way to salvation set forth on the right side ... is strikingly contrasted to the way of damnation on the left side"—but a more nuanced approach asks the viewer to consider a dynamic relationship between Law and Gospel. Bonnie Noble (2009) suggests that in Lutheranism, "law is also the means by which the necessity of grace becomes apparent.... The painting draws a boundary between the dynamics of law and gospel (Lutheran theology) on the one hand, and law on its own (Catholicism or Judaism) on the other".

On the left, "Law" side of the Gotha painting, a naked man is tormented by a demon and a skeleton (Death) as they force him toward Hell. Other motifs on the left include Christ in Judgment, the Fall of Man, the Brazen Serpent, and Moses with his tablets. On the right, "Gospel" side, a man interacts with John the Baptist and stands before both Christ on the Cross and the Risen Christ. The Lamb of God stands atop the trampled demons from the left half. The Dove represents the Holy Spirit. A tree divides the two halves of the panel, shown dying on the left side but living on the "Gospel" side. The bottom of the Gotha painting has six columns of New Testament scripture in German, likely chosen by Philip Melanchthon.

The Prague version unifies the two halves by portraying one man sitting in front of the tree, flanked by a prophet on the left and John the Baptist on the right, both of whom point towards Christ. The panels can thus be read somewhat differently: it is easier for the viewer to identify with the man when he is the centered subject. Temporally, the Gotha panel shows two men simultaneously facing the consequences of past actions, while the man in the Prague panel has a choice before him. He turns affirmatively toward John and the "Gospel" half. The painting includes many of the same symbols as the Gotha panel, such as the Brazen Serpent, Moses (at top left), the Fall, and the Crucified and Risen Christ. The Virgin now stands on a hill at right. This panel originally contained text that labelled the motifs, but they were lost during cleaning. The Prague version was the basis and preferred version for many similar works by Hans Holbein the Younger, Erhard Altdorfer, engraver Geoffroy Tory and others.

Cranach moved the Brazen Serpent motif from the left side in the Gotha panel to the right in the Prague one and later versions. It is an Old Testament story in which God punishes Israelites fleeing Egypt by inflicting them with serpents; they need only look upon the serpent placed on a cross by Moses to be rescued. Luther considered this resolution an example of faith and illustrative of Gospel. The mixture of Old and New Testament concerns in both halves of the panels illustrates that Gospel is not only found in the New Testament.

Meaning

Law and Gospel, National Gallery in Prague. Tempera panel. 72 × 88.5 cm (28.3 × 34.8 in)

For both Luther and Cranach, artworks such as Law and Gospel were intended to instill understanding of scripture and Lutheran thought, and the images were deemed acceptable so long as they were subordinate to, and limited by, the written word. This role for religious art contrasted with other painting of the period, according to art historian Bonnie Noble:

Earlier art originated from nonscriptural sources and performed nebulous functions, such as to inspire pious meditations or even private visions. Pre-Reformation images could bestow merit upon the beholder and frequently became the objects of veneration themselves. The varied origins and functions of art before the Reformation offered a considerable amount of interpretive freedom to the beholder, a freedom that Lutheran views on images vehemently endeavored to curtail.

Thus the didactic format of the painting deliberately seeks to define and limit the viewer's response to it, which makes it ripe for criticism from a modern viewpoint: "Protestant allegory overburdened with thoughts"; Cranach's "shallow fantasy" fails to raise "the religious thought world of the Reformers it intends to portray to an artistic height"; it is "overweighted with dry, didactic propagandistic content" and "sad conglomerations of a tasteless external symbolism".

Another interpretation views the painting as akin to typology, in which correspondences between the Old and New Testaments are sought. This view is complicated by the appearance of Christ in Judgment, from the New Testament, in the "Law" side of the panels, which largely contain Old Testament iconography.

Gallery

• 
  A copy of the Prague panel, which preserves inscriptions that were lost from the original due to cleaning, and adds verses at the bottom
• 
  A later (1536) version by Cranach and his son. Oil, gold and paper on panel, transferred on panel. 64.8 × 120.6 cm (25.5 × 47.4 in)
• 
  Law and Grace, woodcut. Cranach, c. 1530

Works cited

• Noble, Bonnie (2009). Lucas Cranach the Elder: Art and Devotion of the German Reformation. University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-7618-4337-5.
• Weimer, Christoph (2009). "Luther and Cranach on Justification in Word and Image". In Wengert, Timothy J. (ed.). The Pastoral Luther: Essays on Martin Luther's Practical Theology. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 292–309. ISBN 978-0-8028-6351-5.