Cranach, Lucas the Elder German painter (b. 1472, Kronach, d. 1553,
Weimar). Also known as: Lukas Cranach the Elder. Father of: Lucas Cranach II

There are a number of paintings with "Classic Greek/Roman" themes that, at least at first glance, appear to escape the "necessary moral" justification - but it does appear that the fact of their being a "foreign" (time or place) subject was one of the ways an artist found it "permissible" to paint such subjects. He probably couldn't have called it "the cutie next door."

The moral may have been "They did ..., but we don't, if we want to go to heaven." Perhaps there was even the implied - "we know what happened to them. They're not around anymore and we broke the noses off all their (obscene) statues."

Incidentally, perhaps the "prettiest" nude Leonardo did was called "Leda" (and the Swan). Unfortunately, the painting frequnetly passed of as his is now attributed to "Leonardo school" with the notation "the original does not survive."

I certainly don't want to be seen as "defending" the proposition about cruelty/sadism - anymore than I'd want to defend "the girl always dies in folk songs." It was just a convenient "hook" to get into a real look at some good stuff that I missed while I was busy taking my 11 semesters of calculus.

Unfortunately, I may have to back out of this whole thing. I keep coming up with nagging little questions begging to be answered, like:

How many times did Boucher copy that painting of the poor little O'Neill girl? I find at least 3 that various web sites try to pass of as the same one.

And what happened to Flora's nipple (Carriera)?

John

John