Czy naga Wenus Lucasa Cranacha Starszego jest tylko glamour? Sens obrazów Cranacha wobec dawnego rozumienia piękna, miłości i uroku

Abstract

Lucas Cranach the Elder is the author of more than a dozen of paintings depicting the goddess Venus with Cupid holding a honeycomb, as well as the image of Venus preventing Cupid from firing his bow. The paintings come from the period between 1526––1527 and 1537. The image of Venus with armed Cupid has a moralethical meaning as well as a political-dynastic one since she was the patron goddess of the Saxony and Magdeburg ruling family. Venus not only protects the human hearts from suffering caused by love, but also defends peace and truly noble virtues. The second group of works has its origin in the antique poem by Theocritus: Nineteenth Idyll (the second half of the third century BC). In these paintings Cranach presented Venus as a guard of morality, reminding that love is not separate from suffering. The convention of body in the works of Cranach is gothic, the body of the goddess is subtilised, supple, slim, but also sensual. The image of Venus, her beauty and charm that emanate from the naked body of the goddess gain the status of glamour. Cranach created his own canon of beauty and assigned it to Venus. He broadened the understanding of the beauty of a naked body by adding the sphere of contemporary spiritual beauty, and in accordance with Protestant ideology.