The Judgement of Paris

Cranach's Judgement of Paris (1515) at the Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz presents the mythological beauty contest that sparked the Trojan War — Paris's choice between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite — as a northern Renaissance secular subject combining classical learning with the display of nude or partially clothed female figures. The Judgement of Paris was one of the standard mythological subjects of sixteenth-century secular painting, its narrative providing both the classical authority and the visual opportunity that humanist patrons sought. Cranach's treatment offers three female figures in the characteristic pale, elongated style he brought to all his female nudes, with Paris and Hermes in contemporary German armor rather than classical dress — a deliberate anachronism that brought the classical narrative into the patron's present. The Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz, the oldest public museum in Austria, holds a comprehensive collection of Styrian and European art and culture, and the Cranach mythological scene participates in its representation of sixteenth-century secular painting.

Cranach's distinctive female nude — slender, graceful, with a slight elongation that departs from classical proportion — is central to the Judgment composition. The three goddesses are differentiated by attribute and pose, while Paris in his anachronistic armour provides a humorous incongruity characteristic of Cranach's approach to classical mythology.