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Baroque and Rococo
Georges de La Tour
Georges de La Tour(b Vic-sur-Seille, bapt 14 March 1593; d Lunéville, 15 Jan 1653).
French painter. Although he has been increasingly recognized since the early 20th century as one of the most interesting painters of his age and his works have acquired great popularity, he was almost entirely forgotten during the three centuries after his death. Few facts are known about his life, and few of these may be directly related to his paintings. The reconstruction of his oeuvre has been one of the triumphs of art-historical scholarship, though many problems of attribution and chronology remain unresolved. Almost all his career was spent at Luneville, a small town 30 km from Nancy in the then independent duchy of Lorraine. His paintings, which are devoted to genre and religious subjects, seen in either daylight or candlelight, were conceived in a very personal variant of the style of Caravaggio. Many of them have a meditative, spiritual quality that has been compared to that found in the writings of his younger contemporary Blaise Pascal. This Christian atmosphere, which found expression in a style that seems to have moved towards an ever greater rigour of composition, simplification of forms and economy of means, has been related to Lorraine’s involvement in the Roman Catholic renewal of the Counter-Reformation. La Tour’s son Etienne de La Tour (b Luneville, bapt 2 Aug 1621; d Luneville, 10 April 1692) was trained in his father’s workshop but seems to have abandoned his career as a painter after becoming lieutenant of the bailiwick of Luneville in 1660. A number of works in the manner of his father have been attributed to him, although there is much controversy on this subject.
Musico ciego
Saint Jerome Reading
1621-23
Oil on canvas laid down on wood, 62.2 x 55 cm
Royal Collection, Hampton Court
