Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery (Oil on copper transferred from wood after 1532) by Cranach, Lucas the Younger (1515-86)
This painting, now in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, explores the significance of the Gospel episode from John 7:53-8:11, in the light of the Protestant Reformation in Western Europe during the 16th century. The artist Lucas Cranach the Younger was born in Wittenberg, Germany in 1515, where the Reformation had begun in the same year. His father, the acclaimed painter Lucas Cranach the Elder, was a friend of Martin Luther and became known as a leading producer of Protestant artistic propaganda.
Cranach the Younger’s interpretation of Jesus’ encounter with an adulteress draws the viewer’s attention to the moral issues of law and punishment. The Protestant concept of Law and Gospel emphasizes salvation through the forgiveness of sins, in light of the person and work of Jesus Christ. The viewer is thus presented with the moment of moral decision when the adulterous woman is brought before Pharisees and scribes, who asserted that the law of Moses required that she be stoned. In addition, Roman law stated that capital punishment was a Roman privilege. Crowded around Jesus with hands raised in debate are the bearded Jewish elders alongside the governing Roman soldiers dressed in chainmail, the one to the left of the picture being already poised to cast the stone. Jesus is thus presented as the final and ultimate adjudicator, pointing with authority to the woman as he utters the words, “he that is without sin among you, let him first cast the stone at her” (John 8:1).
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