Georges de La Tour

Georges de La Tour
Born	(1593-03-13)13 March 1593 Vic-sur-Seille,Duchy of Lorraine
Died	30 January 1652(1652-01-30)(aged 58) Lunéville,Duchy of Lorraine
Notable work	The Fortune Teller Joseph the Carpenter Magdalene at a Mirror The Card Sharp with the Ace of Diamonds
Movement	Baroque
Patron(s)	Henry II, Duke of Lorraine
Signature

Joseph the Carpenter,1642,Louvre.

Georges de La Tour(13 March 1593 – 30 January 1652) was aFrenchBaroquepainter, who spent most of his working life in theDuchy of Lorraine,which was temporarily absorbed intoFrancebetween 1641 and 1648. He painted mostly religiouschiaroscuroscenes lit by candlelight.

Personal life

Magdalene with Two Flames,c. 1640,Metropolitan Museum of Art

Georges de La Tour was born in the town ofVic-sur-Seillein theDiocese of Metz,which was technically part of theHoly Roman Empire,but had been ruled by France since 1552. Baptism documentation revealed that he was the son of Jean de La Tour, a baker, and Sybille de La Tour, née Molian. It has been suggested that Sybille came from a partly noble family.His parents had seven children in all, with Georges being the second-born.

La Tour's educational background remains somewhat unclear, but it is assumed that he traveled either to Italy or the Netherlands early in his career. He may possibly have trained underJacques BellangeinNancy,the capital of Lorraine, although their styles are very different. His paintings reflect theBaroquenaturalismofCaravaggio,but this probably reached him through the DutchCaravaggistiof theUtrecht Schooland other Northern (FrenchandDutch) contemporaries. In particular, La Tour is often compared to the Dutch painterHendrick Terbrugghen.

In 1617 he married Diane Le Nerf, from a minor noble family, and in 1620 he established his studio in her quiet provincial home-town ofLunéville,part of the independentDuchy of Lorrainewhich was occupied by France, during his lifetime, in the period 1641–1648. He painted mainly religious and some genre scenes. He was given the title "Painter to the King" (of France) in 1638, and he also worked for the Dukes of Lorraine in 1623–4, but the local bourgeoisie provided his main market, and he achieved a certain affluence. He is not recorded in Lunéville between 1639 and 1642, and may have traveled again;Anthony Bluntdetected the influence ofGerrit van Honthorstin his paintings after this point. He was involved in aFranciscan-led religious revival in Lorraine, and over the course of his career he moved to painting almost entirely religious subjects, but in treatments with influence fromgenrepainting.

Georges de La Tour and his family died in 1652 in an epidemic in Lunéville. His son Étienne (1621–1692) was his pupil.

Works

Saint Jeromereading

La Tour's early work shows influences fromCaravaggio,probably via his Dutch followers, and the genre scenes of cheats—as inThe Fortune Teller—and fighting beggars clearly derive from the Dutch Caravaggisti, and probably also his fellow-Lorrainer,Jacques Bellange.These are believed to date from relatively early in his career.

La Tour is best known for the nocturnal light effects which he developed much further than his artistic predecessors had done, and transferred their use in the genre subjects in the paintings of the DutchCaravaggistito religious painting in his. Unlike Caravaggio his religious paintings lack dramatic effects. He painted these in a second phase of his style, perhaps beginning in the 1640s, usingchiaroscuro,careful geometrical compositions, and very simplified painting of forms. His work moves during his career towards greater simplicity and stillness—taking from Caravaggio very different qualities thanJusepe de Riberaand hisTenebristfollowers did.

The Musicians' Brawl,(Hurdy-gurdy group), c. 1625–1630,Getty Museum

He often painted several variations on the same subjects, and his surviving output is relatively small. His son Étienne was his pupil, and distinguishing between their work in versions of La Tour's compositions is difficult. The version of theEducation of the Virginin theFrick Collectionin New York is an example, as the Museum itself admits. Another group of paintings (example left), of great skill but claimed to be different in style to those of La Tour, have been attributed to an unknown "Hurdy-gurdy Master". All show older male figures (one group in Malibu includes a female), mostly solitary, either beggars or saints.

Dice-players,c. 1651, probably his last work. Preston Hall Museum,Stockton-on-Tees,UK.

After his death at Lunéville in 1652, La Tour's work was forgotten until rediscovered in 1915 byHermann Voss,a German art historian who would later become head of Hitler'sFührermuseum;some of La Tour's work had in fact been confused withVermeer,when the Dutch artist underwent his own rediscovery in the nineteenth century.

Gallery

• Chiaroscuro scenes
• 
  Job Mocked by his Wife,c. 1625–1650,Musée départemental d'Art ancien et contemporain,Épinal, France
• 
  Magdalene with the Smoking Flame,c. 1640,Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• 
  The Newborn Christ,c. 1645–1648,Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes
• 
  The education of the Virgin,c. 1650,The Frick Collection
• 
  The smoker,1646,Tokyo Fuji Art Museum
• 
  The Flea-Catcher,1638,Musée Lorrain,Nancy
• 
  Saint Andrewin theAlbi Apostlesseries, c. 1620
• 
  The Repentant Magdalene,c. 1635-1640,National Gallery of Art

• Other
• 
  The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs,c. late 1620s,Kimbell Art Museum,Fort Worth, Texas.Another version(with Diamonds and slightly different clothes) is in the Louvre.
• 
  The Fortune Teller,1633–1639,Metropolitan Museum of Art
• 
  TheHurdy-GurdyPlayer,c. 1610–1630,Prado Museum
• 
  Portrait of an Old Man,c. 1624–1650,De Young Museum,San Francisco
• 
  Portrait of an Old Woman,c. 1624–1650, De Young Museum, San Francisco

See also

• Tenebrism
• Joseph Wright of Derby

References

• Conisbee, Philip. “An Introduction to the Life and Art of Georges de La Tour,” in Philip Conisbee (ed.),Georges de La Tour and His World,exhibition catalogue Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art; Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum 1996, pp.13-147.
• Furness, Sophia Mary Maud.Georges de la Tour of Lorraine, 1593–1652.Published by Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, London, 1949.OCLC886297484.
• Judovitz, Dalia.Georges de La Tour and the Enigma of the Visible,New York, Fordham University Press, 2018.ISBN0-82327-744-5;ISBN9780823277445.
• Le Floch, Jean-Claude.La Tour, Le Clair et L'Obscur,Herscher, 1995.
• Le Floch, Jean-Claude.Le signe de contradiction: essai sur Georges de La Tour et son oeuvre,Presses Universitaires de Rennes 2, 1995.
• Thuilier, Jacques.Georges de La Tour,Flammarion, 1992.
• Wright, Christopher.The Art of the Forger,1984, Gordon Fraser, London.ISBN0-86092-081-X.

External links

• Georges de La Tour at Gallery of Art
• Attributed painting at the Kimbell Art Museum of Fort Worth
• Georges de La Tour. Picturesand Biography
• Judovitz, Dalia. Georges de La Tour and the Enigma of the Visible, 2017.
• Georges de la Tour in Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation.
• Georges de La TouratFondation Berger