Cranach the Younger was one of the major German artists of the Renaissance and his important folding altarpiece of 1555 is in the Herderkirche in Weimar. The painting’s extremely detailed artistic motifs refer to a large number of different passages in the Bible. The numerous details can only be grasped by contemporary viewers with considerable effort, a great deal of prior knowledge, and certainly not at a viewing distance of several meters in the church.

Our collaboration on the approach to the content with the curator of the exhibition, Dr. Karin Kolb, opened up fresh perspectives both for visitors interested in the subject and also for academics and art-experts.

One of the central aims was to consistently display the figures depicted in the painting at life-size using variable enlargement, thereby placing them in direct relation to the viewer. 

The installation involves a touch application with real-time animations and a larger-than-life ultra-high resolution screen on which details from the digitally-edited altarpiece painting can be seen in extreme detail. We created an immersive total experience using skillful ergonomic arrangement of the media surfaces and spatial interaction areas.

This enables the visitor to use touch interaction to move up to 15 predefined image details and explore the altarpiece painting using smart snapping functions. This experience of intuitive interaction is linked to an augmented information level that provides descriptions of the pictorial elements, such as Martin Luther, Satan, and the crucifixion.

The dynamic and extremely enlarged display enabled us to create an educational approach that goes beyond traditional methods and provides a unique insight into Cranach’s altar. This modern high-tech implementation makes the 1555 masterpiece accessible in a way that perhaps only Cranach himself previously experienced.