***November 2009*** |
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Georges de La Tour
March 19, 1593 — died January. 30, 1652
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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 after 1552. He was the second born of seven children in total to his father, Jean de La Tour, a baker, and his mother, Sybille de La Tour.
La Tour's educational background remains somewhat unclear, but it is known that he had a passion for creativity throughout his youth, (he began painting at the age of four). It is believed that he travelled either to Italy or the Netherlands early in his career. His paintings reflect the Baroque naturalism of Caravaggio, although his influence was mainly from his Northern French and Dutch contemporaries. In particular, La Tour is often compared to the Dutch painter Hendrick Terbrugghen, a leading member of the Dutch followers of Caravaggio. |
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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 of Lunéville, part of the independent Duchy of Lorraine which was absorbed into France in 1641, one year before his death.
De la Tour painted mainly religious scenes lthough he also crated both portraiture and landscape as well. In 1638, at the age of forty-five, he was given the title "Painter to the King of France" which helped boost his already growing reputation as a painter. |
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De la Tour also worked for the Dukes of Lorraine in 1623–4, but the local French bourgeoisie provided his main market
He left Lunéville from 1639–1642, and travelled to see more art and renew his inspiration. Upon his return he was involved in a Franciscan-led religious revival in Lorraine, and was soon painting almost entirely religious subjects.
His son Étienne was born 1621, and having the apple not fall far from the tree, became his father's pupil due to his incredible talents shown as a young prodigy painter. |
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La Tour is best known for the nocturnal light effects which he developed much further than his artistic predecessors had done, and transferred this style to his religious paintings. It is said that he mainly painted only at night in the studio and preferred to work by candlelight. Unlike Caravaggio, however, his religious paintings lack dramatic effects. He painted these in a second phase of his style, using chiaroscuro, careful geometrical compositions, and very simplified painting of forms. His work moved during his career towards greater simplicity and stillness. It is at times hard to distinguish between the work of La Tour's and that of his son, Étienne around this time. La Tour often painted several variations on the same subjects, and though quite prolific as a painter, his surviving output is relatively small. He continued to work at a great nightly pace until 1652, when at the age of 59, Georges and his family died in an epidemic in Lunéville, that had been spreading across Europe. |
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After his death in 1652, La Tour's work was more-or-less forgotten until rediscovered by Hermann Voss, a German scholar, in 1915; some of La Tour's work had in fact been confused with Vermeer, when the Dutch artist underwent his own rediscovery in the nineteenth century. 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 as his originals and he is now in most great museums around the world, finally getting all the recognition he so rightfully deserved. |
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