Too Racy for London

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Venus, 1532,
Oil and tempera on red beechwood,
37.7 x 24.5 cm. Stadel Museum, Frankfurt am
Main, Inv. Nr. 1125. Photo © : Jochen Beyer, Village-Neuf.

LINK.

LONDON.- Transport for London has refused to display a poster of the “Venus” painting by German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder stating it was overtly sexual. This painting is one of the 70 works that will be on view at the Royal Academy of Arts on March 8 in London. According to the academy, Transport for London would only display the image if the bottom half was cropped out.

Academy spokeswoman Jennifer Francis said, “I think it is because she's totally nude as opposed to say she's topless. We're shocked. We wouldn't have put a poster design forward if we thought it was offensive."

Jennifer Francis stated that the "Venus" was chosen because it best represents Cranach's work, but the academy was uncomfortable altering the artist's work by cropping it. Jennifer Francis stated, "We actually thought it was quite an innocent painting."

Transport for London issued a statement: "We have to take account of the full range of travelers and endeavor not to cause offense in the advertising we display."

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Additional information on Cranach:

An article at all-art.org.

An article from Germany.info.
An editorial at Guardian Unlimited.

Lucas Cranach's Portraits of Martin Luther and His Parents

The other day, I was researching something about Martin Luther for some reason and came upon three portraits by Lucas Cranach the Elder (one of Luther's good friends and an artist). I've never been one for Cranach's nudes, but his portraits, such as these, are very telling and insightful into the characters of the sitters.

Portrait of Luther's Father, 1527

Margarethe Luther, year unknown


Martin Luther, 1529

After reading the information on the following links, what do you think of Cranach's portraits?

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on Luther
The Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on Luther
10 Things You Didn't Know About Martin Luther from a PBS program