De Bruyckere: One of the things that struck me in the exhibition is that because Cranach returns to certain themes so often – as indeed I do –, you begin to wonder just how far a single theme can be pared down or, conversely, how many ways there are of exploring different forms and materials within the same theme. In my view, many of his paintings are really badly painted, especially the portraits. However, in some portraits his admiration for his subject really comes across. These works are wonderful to look at, but all too often he just seems to be churning out commissions…
Above all I feel an affinity with the way he deals with corporality, the way he uses the sensual body as an image for the mental body. There was a painting on show of a Pietà with a veiled Mary. Her whole face, but also the way her hands are placed round the body of her son tell us something about the pain she feels. You know that Christ is dead, but she holds him in her arms as if he was still alive. Christ’s face and gestures constitute a powerful experience within the painting. His hands are clenched, as if trying to hold onto life, but you sense that it has just gone out of him. On the edge of the painting we see a crown, which is really lovely because it denotes the ‘letting go’ and suggests that enough is enough. I’d like to make a work centred on a crown of thorns, which conveys that sense of letting go…. For me it’s a really powerful painting: the way the body occupies the picture-plane, the way the hand is positioned in the corner and the feet are not contained within the framework of the painting.