Reclining River Nymph at the Fountain 1518
Oil on canvas, 59 x 92 cm
Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig

The resurgence of Gothic linear rhythms is fundamental for the whole of Cranach's later work, in which the borderline between sacred and mundane art is blurred. He represented female saints as beautiful and elegant ladies in fashionable dress and covered with jewelry. His Reclining River Nymph at the Fountain (1518 Leipzig) shows with what assurance he translated a Renaissance model - Giorgione's Venus - into his personal language of linear arabesque. This work inaugurated a long series of paintings of Venus, Lucretia, the Graces, the judgment of Paris, and other subjects that serve as pretexts for the sensuous female nude, in which Cranach appears as a kind of 16th-century Francois Boucher.

There exists several copy of this painting made by the workshop of Cranach. The original painting is in Leipzig.

The above Sleeping Venus was painted in 1864 by Giorgione.

L I N K S

Impressed by the above painting, Edouard Manet (One of the Impressionist-painters) produced Olympia. For more information, please visit From Sleeping Venus to Olympia.

Giorgione (Cranach’s contemporary) seems to have impressed Manet greatly. He also painted the Luncheon on the Grass (Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe) with an ever-lasting impression of Giorgione’s Pastoral Concert (Concert Champêtre). For more information, please visit Origin of “Luncheon”.

As a pupil of Giogrione, Titian also got inspired by his master’s work, and produced his famous Venus of Urbino. Please visit the Birth of Urbino Venus.