Posted on 11/23/2020 6:26:23 AM PST by Hebrews 11:6
Both the Cranachs have a style that I find peculiar, stilted and unnatural—not distasteful, but somehow off-putting. But that’s just me.
It’s somewhat more like illustration than representation; but it appeals to me because it was so far ahead of its time. It is more akin to the works of the Art Nouveau era of the late 19th-early 20th centuries than to the Renaissance with which the Cranachs were surrounded.
OK, but I don't understand why none of them--all packed together so strangely--has a facial expression. They remind me of mannequins.
“It must have been a pathetic and laughable sight, watch those fools’ antics for hours.”
Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.
27 At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” 28 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. 29 Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.
This was one of the original cases of “eating popcorn” while your enemies self-destruct.
While the crowd looked on, laughing derisively at the increasingly desperate Baalites. By the end, those 450 had zero excuses and credibility, so that once Elijah stacked the odds against himself with the water and succeeded anyway, the onlookers were more than willing to follow his orders.
The packed together part is his illustrative approach to depicting a crowd around Jesus — women coming to have their children blessed. Such a scene is not described in the Bible IIRC; just Jesus telling his disciples to "let the little children come to me. and hinder them not..."
As for the facial expressions, it may have been a cultural thing. I am in your age group. I remember a German exchange student back in my college years complaining about Americans smiling and showing their teeth all the time. She thought it was phony and ill-mannered.
Part of the encultured reason for the pursed mouths may be due to Cranach painting in an era without advanced dental care. It is the reason given two centuries later why George Washington is never depicted smiling openly, even in his 40s — he had noticeably false teeth when he was President and probably had several teeth missing in younger adulthood up until the full set was made. (Scholars dispute whether Washington's denture teeth were made of wood or ivory.)
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