Animals in Eden: the Courtauld Gallery's Cranach exhibition is a tightly focused revelation of his individual genius

Following recent shows in London on Durer and Holbein the Younger, this exhibition takes its place as the first of its kind in the UK dedicated to another great German renaissance artist, Lucas Cranach. Born in Kronach, Bavaria, Cranach became court painter to the Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony in 1505, after a brief period in Vienna. He spent the majority of his long career working for the Elector and his successors in Wittenberg, where he established, with his sons, Hans (1513-37) and Lucas the Younger (1515-86), a highly productive workshop that brought fame and wealth to the entire family. Stimulated by Durer's early prints, Cranach also played a pivotal role in the aesthetic development of the single-sheet print during the early 16th century. His great entrepreneurial skills led him to play a significant role in disseminating early Reformation literature. The university at Wittenberg was the home of Martin Luther, a close personal friend. Through his interest in print-making, Cranach illustrated and published much of the reformer's work before Luther was a household name.

This exhibition provides a perfect introduction to some of Cranach's favourite themes. It is shown in a single room at the top of the grand 18th-century staircase at Somerset House. This intimate scale provides an excellent setting for an artist who is best appreciated in small-scale paintings, drawings and prints. Unlike Durer and Holbein, Cranach was not especially interested in Italian renaissance ideals of classical antiquity. Instead, as today, he was admired for elegant portraits of Saxon aristocracy and for small paintings of sinuous nudes set in lush green landscapes, reminiscent of German forests, under improbably blue skies. The centrepiece of this display is just such a painting. The Courtauld's Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Fig. 1) was made in 1526, when Cranach was at the height of his powers. It is arguably one of the most beautiful and innovative of over 50 depictions of Adam and Eve produced in Cranach's workshop. The traditional static manner of representing the scene--with the serpent offering the apple to Eve standing on one side of the Tree of Knowledge, with Adam on the other--is abandoned in favour of a sunny woodland scene more suggestive of the Garden of Eden. The serpent, which usually plays a more dominant role, is coiled up dozing in an apple-tree laden with ripe fruit. Light falls seductively on Eve's body and hair and Adam scratches his head doubtfully while taking a half-eaten apple from her hand. The couple are surrounded by a variety of animals and birds that imbue the scene with an air of rural contentment.

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The painting is displayed near others by Cranach of similar date and size but of quite different subject matter. Cupid Complaining to Venus shows Venus admonishing Cupid after bees have attacked him because he has been stealing honey; Apollo and Diana is clearly influenced by prints by Durer and Jacopo de' Barbari; and A Faun and his Family, which includes a slain lion, blends references to antique literature with Germanic folklore in a way that directly appealed to the Saxon court. Despite their contrast of mythological and religious subjects, all these pictures set elegant nudes within a distinctive, Germanic wooded background. Susan Foister's argument in the catalogue that they were painted with the idea of being displayed together has much to recommend it.

A particularly striking feature of the exhibition, and totally new to a London audience, is Cranach's skill and spontaneity as a draughtsman. The exhibition's curators, Stephanie Buck and Caroline Campbell, are particularly to be congratulated for their selection of Cranach's drawings from collections in Dresden, Berlin and Paris. The astonishingly large scale and fresh quality of a drawing such as the Young Stag (Fig. 2) give it the appearance of a finished work of art, but Cranach, like Durer, clearly used such carefully worked sheets in his workshop while composing his paintings. The vitality of a sheet such as Wild Boars and Hunting Hounds (cat. no 7) also reveals an instinctive affinity with the behaviour of animals that tells us much about his creative process.

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Cranach's love of the countryside, animals and outdoor pursuits is also revealed in his prints. He made numerous woodcuts of courtly activities, and his Stag Hunt (Fig. 3,) is a typical example. His overwhelming interest in these themes even creeps into his border illustrations for sermons by Luther, one of which has a titlepage illustrated with a group of deer. Essays in the well-illustrated catalogue discuss the main themes in Cranach's art and highlight his position as one of the most innovative and prolific German artists of the 16th century. With this show as an introduction, we can all look forward to the much larger exhibition on Cranach at the Royal Academy next year.

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Giulia Bartrum is curator of German prints and drawings, the British Museum, London.