Beguiling mix

Exhibitions: Temptation in Eden: Lucas Cranach’s ‘Adam and Eve’; Work, Rest & Play

Amazingly, the Courtauld can claim to have mounted the first exhibition in England devoted to Lucas Cranach the Elder (c.1472–1553). He’s not an artist we know at all well here, though one or two images will be familiar from reproduction, probably elegant, elongated and slightly heraldic full-length portraits, or glimmering erotic nudes. There’s something very individual and instantly recognisable about his images, an aura of self-containment which is based on a decorative unity which looks back to Gothic art. This is balanced by the new naturalism of the German Renaissance. Cranach employed landscape elements (in the wake of Dürer) in his portraits and religious pictures as a means of adding poignancy and expression to his compositions. His particular mix of old and new is striking, and, at its best, deeply beguiling.

This fine small exhibition is built around the Courtauld’s own ‘Adam and Eve’, painted in 1526, one of more than 50 versions of this subject created by Cranach, his sons and their workshop. Prepare yourselves for the Fall of Man, for a slightly perplexed-looking Adam surrendering to temptation and accepting the apple from Eve, watched by a small but supercilious serpent in the tree. The action takes place in what looks more like a (German) forest glade than the Garden of Eden, and what really grabs the eye after the human charms of the principal couple is the abundant fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (though it took only one apple to bring down Adam — who were the others aimed at?), and the wildlife all around. Here the lion almost lies down with the lamb, various deer are in attendance and a wild boar snortles into view.