Quotes About Altarpieces

Cranach was one of Martin Luther's close allies and, in the mid-sixteenth century, he produced altarpieces for Lutheran churches in Wittenburg, Weimar, Schneeburg, Kemberg, Regensburg, and Dessau. Unlike other reformers, Luther never forbade images, especially of the crucifixion, and many of Cranach's paintings and altarpieces functioned as didactic exercises, almost schematic diagrams of Lutheran soteriology.

However beautiful it looked, it was quite inadequate to illuminate the altarpieces which mostly hung in the gloom of the side chapels; it only made the darkness more intense.