Book
French
ID: <
10670/1.az31c0>
Abstract
Reformation not only gives rise to a new way of believing, but also to a new way of seeing. In the German Empire, while Luther tolerates images in churches, it does cause a new religious and lay iconography to emerge. The multiplication of images of the prince, produced by the workshop of Lucas Cranach, an engraving painter of the Saxony readers, the first supporters of the Reformer, can be linked to the lutherian preaching and confessional struggle. This new visual art of portrait gives rise to novel forms of representation of political authority. In response to this expansion of the protest portrait, the Catholic Princes of the Empire also engage in new visual production. In addition to the fight against weapons and speech, there is thus a war on images, the issue of which is the legitimate recognition of faith, but also the redefinition of civilian power. After the peace of Augsburg (1555), which recognises the existence of lutherians in law, their forms of representation tend to capture the imperial and monarchic figurative arrangements, based on a Catholic model of the Incarnation. The prince’s portrait, backed by a major theoretical reflection on his authority, is becoming one of the means of thinking about changing power.