The Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris presents an extraordinary portrait of Georges de La Tour (1593-1652), a painter known for his rare production and works that are sometimes in poor condition. The exhibition "Georges de La Tour, Between Shadow and Light" (September 11 through January 25) represents a challenging endeavor given the difficulty of obtaining loans of his paintings from various institutions.
While the exhibition primarily showcases La Tour as a tenebrist painter specializing in dramatic light-and-shadow effects, it's important to note that he was equally skilled at creating genre scenes with luminous colors. Visitors can experience twenty-three authentic works by the master alongside copies of lost works and paintings by his contemporaries, offering a comprehensive view of his artistic legacy.
Georges de La Tour's biography remains concise yet fascinating. Born in Lorraine, he fled Vic-sur-Seille and Nancy to settle in Paris in 1639, where he was appointed as ordinary painter to King Louis XIII. Gradually, he won the favor of wealthy patrons including the Duke of Lorraine and Cardinal Richelieu. He died of pleurisy in Lunéville at the age of 58. His artistic production alternated between nocturnal scenes and daytime compositions, sometimes featuring ambitious arrangements. Few canvases are signed and dated, with his total output limited to approximately forty works.
It remains unclear whether Georges de La Tour traveled to Italy in the early 17th century, but he clearly understood the chiaroscuro techniques of Caravaggio and his contemporaries who were passionate about light effects. He may have discovered these brilliant lighting techniques in Utrecht through the works of Dutch masters. La Tour pushed his nocturnal scenes to their peak, illuminating them with a simple candle, sometimes hidden by a hand, an object, or a figure.
In many paintings, such as "The Newborn," the light source remains off-canvas, indirectly illuminating faces and bodies. For "The Dice Players," the cunning Georges de La Tour employs every possible lighting effect to connect the five figures in his composition: powerful lighting for the woman with the pearl and the soldier seen from behind in backlighting (on the right), subdued lighting for the other two players and the pipe smoker. The armor catches white flashes that pierce through the night.
By eliminating numerous decorative details, Georges de La Tour chose a stripped-down, minimal, radical painting style. Certain works, like "Woman with a Flea" or "Job Mocked by His Wife," focus solely on one or two characters, with accessories reduced to a minimum (a stool, a candle) and a limited range of warm colors. From this deliberate austerity emerges a very contemporary poetry. The exhibition displays workshop versions or copies after Georges de La Tour alongside the originals, allowing visitors to make comparisons with the Lorraine master's authentic canvases.
Like Vermeer, Georges de La Tour was only rediscovered relatively late. In 1915, German historian Hermann Voss studied two works at the Nantes Museum, "The Apparition of the Angel to Saint Joseph" and "The Denial of Saint Peter," along with "The Newborn" in Rennes. This was followed by the "Painters of Reality" exhibition in 1934 and François-Georges Pariset's thesis in 1947. Today, Georges de La Tour's nocturnes fascinate viewers with their austerity and evoke the spirituality of mystics like John of the Cross and Cardinal de Bérulle.
The absence of "The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds" and "The Fortune Teller" somewhat distorts the perception one should have of Georges de La Tour's work, as he was capable of celebrating the richness of fabric and the brilliance of jewelry. Nevertheless, among the twenty or so paintings by the Lorraine master present in the exhibition, visitors can see the Louvre's "Saint Thomas," purchased in 1988 through public subscription and the generosity of the Society of Friends of the Louvre and Madame Granday-Pestel, as well as a series of portraits of old men and beggars. The exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to appreciate the full range of this master's artistic genius in one of Paris's most prestigious cultural venues.
