Lucas Cranach st., Zakon a Milost: Luther, nebo Erasmus?
Lucas Cranach older, Law and Grace: Luther or Erasmus?

Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted to two images with the theme of Law and Grace, which are associated with the name of Lucas Cranach the Elder (both in the National Gallery in Prague). The first is dated to 1529 and does not have the original format, which plays a fundamental role for the interpretation of the iconography, because in the past there was a secondary reduction of the image, during which a band with biblical citations was removed. Other passages from the Bible were placed also on the surface of the image, but these were removed as nonoriginal during a restoration in 1971–1972. According to the literature so far, the panel of Law and Grace conveys one of the bases of Luther’s teaching on justification through faith. This was called into question by Matthias Weniger, according to whom the concept of the work is drawn from Erasmianism; he demonstrated his observations i.a. on the biblical citations in Cranach’s original. The inscriptions from the image were removed, so Weniger was working with inscription preserved on a copy of this composition. It is, however, not possible to consider it as such a trustworthy source for us to amend the so-far accepted interpretation of Cranach’s original from 1529.

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