Georges de La Tour

Georges de La Tour (Vic-sur-Seille, March 13, 1593 – Lunéville, January 30, 1652) was a painter, who spent most of his working life in the Duchy of Lorraine, which became part of France the year before his death. He painted mostly religious scenes lit by candlelight, and after centuries of posthumous obscurity became one of the most highly regarded of French 17th century artists in the 20th century.

Life

Georges de La Tour was born in the town of Vic-sur-Seille in the Diocese of Metz, technically part of the Holy Roman Empire, but controlled by France since 1552. Baptism documentation reveals 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. [ [http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04112007-165514/unrestricted/Thesis.pdf] Crissy Bergeron Thesis - page 7, and note 4, quoting Thuillier p.19] The de La Tours 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 travelled either to Italy or the Netherlands early in his career. His paintings reflect the Baroque naturalism of Caravaggio, but this probably reached him through the Dutch "Caravaggisti" of the Utrecht School and other Northern (French and Dutch) contemporaries. In particular, La Tour is often compared to the Dutch painter Hendrick Terbrugghen.Anthony Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France, 1500–1700", 1953, Penguin]

In 1617 he married Diane Le Nerf, of a minor noble family, and in 1620 he established his studio in her quiet provincial home-town of Lunéville, part of the independent Duchy of Lorraine which was absorbed into France in 1641, during his lifetime. 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 in 1639–42, and may have travelled again; Blunt detected the influence of Gerrit van Honthorst in his paintings after this point. He was involved in a Franciscan-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 from "genre" painting.

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

Works

His early work shows influences from Caravaggio, probably via his Dutch followers, and the genre scenes of cheats—as in "The 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 Dutch "Caravaggisti" to 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, using chiaroscuro, 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 than Jusepe de Ribera and his Tenebrist followers did.

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 the "Education of the Virgin", in the Frick Collection in 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 de 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. [Wright, 35, 44-46]

After his death in 1652, La Tour's work was largely forgotten until rediscovered by Hermann Voss, a German scholar, in 1915. In 1935 an exhibition in Paris began the revival in interest among a wider public. In the twentieth century a number of his works were identified once more, and forgers tried to help meet the new demand; many aspects of his œuvre remain controversial among art historians.

In film

Director Peter Greenaway has described de La Tour's work as a primary influence on his 1982 film "The Draughtsman's Contract".

A reference to a work purportedly by de La Tour is featured prominently in the 2003 Merchant Ivory film "Le Divorce".

"Penitent Magdalene" is the painting Ariel references when she yearns to know about fire while singing "Part of Your World" in Disney's "The Little Mermaid".

Gallery

Galleries containing de La Tour's works

*France
**The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nancy, former capital of Lorraine, has the largest collection.
**Musee du Louvre, Paris, and many provincial galleries (Nantes, Rennes etc).
*UK
**Preston Hall Museum in Stockton-on-Tees, England, has " [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
] ".
*USA
**Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
**Getty Center, Los Angeles, California
**Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
**Frick, New York
**De Young, San Francisco
**National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
**Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
*Japan
**The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

ee also

*Tenebrism
*Joseph Wright of Derby

Notes

References

*Wright, Christopher. "The Art of the Forger", 1984, Gordon Fraser, London. ISBN 086092081X

External links

* [http://www.galleryofart.us/Georges_de_La_Tour Georges de La Tour at Gallery of Art]
* [http://www.kimbellart.org/database/index.cfm?detail=yes&ID=AP%201993.04 Attributed painting at the Kimbell Art Museum of Fort Worth]