Ashley Null on Cranmer’s Portrait
“In the famous 1545-1546 Gerlach Flicke portrait of Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) at the National Portrait Gallery in London, the primate of all England looks out at us as if we had just walked in on him unexpectantly in his study. He is seated at a richly carpeted desk. The billowing curtain behind him is drawn back, enabling the sun to provide plenty of good light for the archbishop’s reading, which we have evidently interrupted. Two books and a letter lie on top of the table, evidencing his engagement in study as a break from the pressing responsibilities of office. Yet in his long, slender and rather pale scholar’s hands is the particular, still-open, book from whose consideration we have just distracted him. Due to its helpful labelling, we can see that the archbishop has been reading from the Epistles of St. Paul. His eyes look straight at us, as if he is ready to share with us some thoughts about what he has been reading. Although Cranmer was notoriously reticent about his interior life, in this portrait he seeks to make a public statement about his ministry. He wishes to be know as an archbishop whose most characteristic act is to read Scripture so as to be ready to share it.”
Ashley Null “Thomas Cranmer’s Reputation Reconsidered,” Reformation Reputations: The Power of the Individual in English Reformation History, Ed. David J. Crankshaw & George W.C. Gross