georges de la tour biographie

Georges de La Tour

French Artist

Summary of Georges de La Tour

One of the greatest exponents of 17 th century Baroque painting, La Tour's mastery of chiaroscuro was such that he is often named as Caravaggio's natural successor. But La Tour's paintings, although relatively small in number, stand on their own terms for an economy of styling that charge his brooding candlelit scenes with a sense of enigmatic tranquility. La Tour's oeuvre shows a steady progression towards a uniquely minimalist style that would touch upon elements of symmetrical abstraction. Indeed, several historians have championed la Tour as the true progenitor of the Cubist movement. Although he was much admired in his own day, La Tour joins the exalted company of Piero della Francesca and Vermeer as canonical artists whose names and works had fallen into obscurity (and in La Tour's case, misattributed) before being rediscovered (and re-championed) by historians in the 20 th century.

Accomplishments

• La Tour's distinguished himself from others working in the Baroque style through a series of works that feature figures lit dramatically by the soft glow of a single light source. La Tour became increasingly drawn to candlelight scenes - often featuring a young boy or girl absorbed in an everyday task, whereby the flame spreads an atmosphere of otherworldly calm across the whole canvas. As his style evolved, La Tour's works would become increasingly sparse, with his masses reduced to simple, almost geometrical, dimensions. This technique imbues his works with a somewhat modern appearance that has provided a significant addition to the catalogue of 17th century French art.
• La Tour is sometimes referred to as a realist on the grounds that his works addressed the lives and experiences of the "common folk" of his hometown of Lorraine. But La Tour was not a naturalist. For his "real-life" works he achieved a sober, but meditative, quality. Indeed, rather than fixate the picturesque style that was prevalent in Northern Europe at the time, La Tour turned to the Caravaggesque realist approach since it provided the best means of representing "the soul of man".
• La Tour's sparsely populated pictures are rendered in "anonymous" locations with the absence of setting or scenery. His subjects never pose in front of architectural backgrounds or landscapes, with borders and boundaries delineated typically through partitioning devices such as walls. He omitted subsidiary figures with incidental accessories kept to the bare minimum (even his saints and angels were without haloes and wings). This technique, which brought a sense of silent calm, contributed to the enigmatic quality that has come to distinguish his work.
• La Tour's paintings, almost exclusively genre and religious works, can be divided between daytime and night-time scenes. Whereas the latter are defined by artificial light and a near elimination of color, the former, such as The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds (c. 1635) and The Fortune-Teller (undated, c.1630-34), are distinguished by for their sharp, clear lighting, and a precision of brushwork. La Tour's works from this phase already indicate something of his individuality in their exquisite ornamentations and rendering of textures.

The Life of Georges de La Tour

According to author Christopher Wright, La Tour, "was seen as the great master of candlelight paintings, set apart from his contemporaries, by a near magical approach, both in subject matter and technique".

Important Art by Georges de La Tour

The Payment of Taxes

An important early work by La Tour, it shows an elderly man paying a tax (or debt) to group of men. The scene carries an element of threat in that the taxpayer seems as if he is being intimidated by the group. Author Philip Conisbee says of the work, "It has been convincingly suggested that its source lies in the tradition of tax-paying scenes, a well-established theme in Netherlandish art since the sixteenth century". Yet the painting carries a certain ambiguity in that, what might be on surface level a generic peasant scene of the powerful subjugating the meek, could be a modern reinterpretation of the biblical story of the "Calling of Matthew" (the tax collector who became a disciple) if, as some historians believe, it was painted during the earliest period of his career when he was chiefly engaged in painting the saints. In either case, this work offers confirmation of La Tour's skill at creating complex group compositions. According to Conisbee, here "La Tour employs a crowded space, somewhat awkward, eccentric poses, and a self-conscious use of artificial light to create the atmosphere of a silent and unsettling drama. Every feature of the painting - gestures, expressions, enigmatic poses, the play of light and shade - works to produce a tense, concentrated mood. Even the elevated viewpoint adds to the tension we experience from this encounter. [Even though early in his career, it] is already characteristic of La Tour's approach to painting: he rarely chooses an innovative subject, but he meditates on it deeply and presents it in a highly focused or concentrated way. There is no visual distraction, no ornament for ornament's sake. Forms are reduced to essentials, as are the gestures and expressions of his actors, establishing in this case a threatening mood".

Oil on canvas - Museum of Fine Arts, Lviv, Ukraine

Old Peasant Couple Eating

This painting is one of La Tour's key early works. It amply demonstrates his flair for capturing the mood of his subjects. As author Vittorio Maria de Bonis notes, the couple "ignore each other and instead sink their melancholy gaze into the eyes of the viewer as they angrily and greedily eat spoonfuls of the bright peas inside chipped, rough terracotta bowls". The mature figures are desperately hungry and they might easily symbolize the population of Lorraine (in Northeastern France) who had grown exhausted through war and famine. The bleak mood is reinforced through the dramatic Baroque style that sets the figures, whose faces and figures are cast in shadows, against a dour, featureless, background. De Bonis calls the painting, "one of the most eloquently desolate images of hunger and poverty ever painted". This work is also interesting because, unlike the artist's later pieces, it is not obvious to the viewer what message La Tour was trying to communicate. According to author Philip Conisbee, the work, "presents something of a dilemma for the modern viewer, for there are no clues about how the artist and his public understood such a picture: should we pity their plight, look down on them, or just savor their picturesqueness?". Conisbee suggests that La Tour invests his subjects "with a certain dignity, which perhaps means we should admire them as 'salt of the earth'". It is this fascinating element of ambiguity that contributed to the painters soaring reputation amongst 20 th century historians.

Oil on canvas - Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany

The Fortune-Teller

Art historian Deanna MacDonald writes, "This painting is full of enigmas relating to its painter, subject and provenance. Signed in Latin in its top right corner 'G. de La Tour Fecit Luneuilla Lothar' (made by G. de La Tour, Lunéville Lorraine), this is one of the few daylight paintings by an artist who specialised in nocturnal scenes". In this narrative work, a well-to-do young man looks questioningly at the toothless old woman on the far right of the canvas as she holds out a coin. While focused on whatever tale she is spinning, he fails to realize that the other women standing around him, in cahoots with the older woman who has distracted him, are in the act of picking his pockets. MacDonald observes, "There is no indication of setting, though all wear colourful costumes. Are they in a brothel? Are the robbers gypsies? As it has a theatrical air, could it be a scene from a play, such as the parable of the prodigal son? But la Tour does not play the scene for comedy or eroticism. Sideways glances, expressive hand gestures and a mix of shadow and crisp daylight create an atmosphere ripe with tension: what will happen next? Details are meticulously rendered; from the patterns on the colourful fabrics to the words AMOR (love) and FIDES (faith) written minutely on the young man's watch chain. Despite the moralising theme, the artist seems to imbue each character with humanity: the foppish youth seems more naïve than dissolute and there is a sense of sadness and peril about the thieves (punishments for stealing in the 17th century included cutting off an ear, branding or death). The picture seems to warn of the dangers for all in a world of deceit and greed". MacDonald also introduces an interesting historical caveat into readings of the painting. In 1984 the art historian Christopher Wright published a book in which he claimed that all of La Tour's daylight pictures were in fact forgeries. MacDonald observes, "Wright, who as a young scholar had been involved in La Tour authentications, said that he had been pressured to pronounce the work genuine by powerful figures such as Sir Anthony Blunt, the famed art expert/spy. Wright even suggested that a French restorer (who died in 1954) named Delobre who worked for Wildenstein in the USA had painted them. Many have dismissed Wright's claims, including the Met [Museum of Art] but an aura of mystery remains".

Oil on canvas - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

The Penitent Magdalen

The Penitent Magdalen is rich in the type of religious symbolism that would have been easily understood by audiences of La Tour's day. As the Metropolitan Museum of Art explains, "the quiet atmosphere of this painting perfectly fits the subject, Mary Magdalen, who renounced the pleasures of the flesh for a life of penance and contemplation. She is shown with a mirror, symbol of vanity; a skull, emblem of mortality; and a candle that probably references her spiritual enlightenment". Here, as in his others works in this style, La Tour uses heightened chiaroscuro - or tenebrism - to underscore the mood and/or motivation of his subject. Conisbee writes, "At its most basic level the darkened interior enabled the artist to play on the theme of light and reflected light in contrast with the surrounding obscurity. It could set a mood conducive to contemplation and meditation, both for the actors in his pictures and for the participating spectator. Light and darkness had symbolic values on several levels: most obviously in the contrast between the spiritual darkness of our mortal world, illuminated by the light of the divine". Indeed, Mary Magdalene is a fitting subject for La Tour's Baroque treatment. The candle, which was widely interpreted as a symbol of Christ's presence, features here to connote an act of meditation and Magdalen's new faith (in Jesus) that will lead her away from a life of sin. But perhaps the most striking stylistic feature of this work is the reflection of the candle in the mirror. As Conisbee explains, "The two flames really dominate the picture, not only because they are the source of light, illuminating the figure of the Magdalene, but also because the repeated image of the flame and its reflection are so compelling; we can see both sides of the candle, and the far side best because it is illuminated by the reflected light. Only the skull on Magdalene's lap suggests that she may be pondering the earthly reality of our mortality and the eternal truth of the spiritual life, while deciding to abandon the blandishments of the material world".

Saint Joseph in the Carpenter's Shop

A rarely depicted subject, La Tour has shown Jesus as a young boy in the workshop of his carpenter father. Joseph dominates the scene and is bent down over a piece of wood, which he is working with a tool. Jesus holds a candle to help his father to see, effectively bathing his whole face in light. Joseph's eyes seem to be turned upward towards his son, suggesting they are in conversation. In fact this could be read as a humble familial scene were it not for the painting's title. La Tour's nocturne painting shows how he used lighting effects to elevate drama over naturalism. As authors Claudio Falcucci and Simona Rinaldi write, "one example of the extent to which what is portrayed in his paintings can be divorced from reality is visible in the Child's hand hiding the candle [...]. It is commonly known that light transmitted across a hand with its fingers closed produces a bright red colour, which is at its brightest where the fingers touch one another, and darker where the hand is thicker. In no case do we ever observe a white contour around the fingers, especially when they slightly overlap as they do in the representation. [...] Indeed, a constant element in La Tour's canvases seems to be his moving beyond the mere description of the physical phenomenon of the light released by the candle in the name of a more highly symbolic value".

Oil on canvas - Louvre Museum, Paris, France

The Choirboy

This work is characteristic of La Tour's penetrating application of the Baroque style. To enhance the drama of his scenes, and demonstrating his sophisticated handling of chiaroscuro that expresses itself in sharp tenebrism, he allowed his figures, in this case a solitary choirboy wearing a plumb colored alb with a delicately embroidered collar, to be illuminated by the light of a single candle. What is perhaps most interesting about this work from a compositional point of view is that the candle is not visible; rather it is hidden behind the hymn book that the boy holds. Only the tip of the flame and the base of the candle in the boy's hand is peeking out from behind the book. La Tour's clever composition reinforces the dedication of the boy to the task at hand while perhaps allowing the viewer to contemplate their own faith and devotion. Art critic Laura Cumming offers this reading of the painting: "La Tour must have seen a Caravaggio somewhere, if only as a print - but nobody has ever put such emphasis on the behaviour of candlelight. The way it strokes surfaces, sends out showers of highlights, gives warmth as well as light while casting everything beyond its ambit into blackness. His figures appear spellbound by the magical flame, seized with its mystery; only the candlelight shifts. He often achieves this by hiding the light source itself. [Here a] choirboy holds a candle up to his hymns but we only see the tip of the flame above a book that's as black as night. All that is visible, in fact, in this cave of seething darkness are the fingers, the face and this mesmerising flicker, giving the queer sense of a soul in trance. And what a serene mask the boy has, radically simplified and slightly oriental like many of de La Tour's characters. His candlelight seems to sheer away irregularities like a laser, polishing skin and making diamonds of eyes".

Oil on canvas - Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester, England

The Adoration of the Shepherds

In La Tour's nativity painting, the Christ child, swaddled in white cloth, is featured bathed in light in the center of the composition. Mary sits on the left, hands clasped in prayer while Joseph, sitting directly across from her, has his hands raised in praise. Two shepherds and a peasant girl occupy the background and look down on the baby adoringly. While the nativity has been a popular theme for artists throughout history, La Tour's approach distinguishes itself from other works in this theme. According to Conisbee, "the story lent itself to a nighttime scene, and there are countless prototypes in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. La Tour has gathered a group of five sympathetically observed worshippers around the Christ Child, who seems to radiate more light than he can possibly simply reflect from the candle held by Joseph. This last detail is significant. [...] La Tour brings a sense of intimacy and tenderness to the scene, and we can admire his powers of observation in the swaddled child. [...] There is no sense of theatricality in La Tour's interpretation: no dramatic gestures or exaggerated expressions". In this example we can see a style of rendering figures that helped distinguish La Tour from the approach of Caravaggio (to whom he was/is routinely compared). As Falcucci and Rinaldi explain, "while Caravaggio tended to emphasize the sculptural qualities of his subjects by painting them before he painted the background, which he then darkened depending on what was needed, always being sure not to let the background and the subject come into pictorial contact with each other, La Tour made very distinct borders between the background colours, which he then painted independently so that the figures were transformed into shapes applied to the background, with no dialectical rapport between the two".

Biography of Georges de La Tour

Childhood and education.

There is little information about the early life of Georges de La Tour, and without a surviving self-portrait (assuming he had painted one), we do not even have an image of the artist. All that is known (rumors that he was arrogant and unpopular with his neighbors notwithstanding) is that he was the second of seven children, born in Vic-sur-Seille (Vic), a large market town in the independent duchy of Lorraine (now part of north-eastern France). His father, Jean de La Tour, was a baker, his mother, also from a family of bakers, was named Sybille de Crospaux. His baptismal certificate was registered in Vic on 14 March 1593.

Early Training

That La Tour must have had an early interest in art can be assumed given that in the seventeenth century one would not have been accepted into a workshop to study unless he or she had already demonstrated a nascent talent. Art historian Gail Feigenbaum suggests that "His apprenticeship likely began around 1605, perhaps in Vic with Alphonse de Rambervilliers, a writer and amateur engraver close to the bishop of Metz, and he very likely worked in Nancy with the painter, etcher, and draftsman Jacques Bellange". Authors Claudio Falcucci and Simona Rinaldi have also conjectured that La Tour "received his artistic education in the workshop of the Swiss painter Claude Dogoz, who was working in the lively Lorraine area at the time". And while little is known about his religious upbringing, Feigenbaum observes that his devotional paintings, such as The Repentant Magdalen (c. 1640), "demonstrate powerful introspection and intense spirituality [that] may reflect the strong Catholic sentiments of Lorraine, which bordered northern Protestant states".

The influence of the Italian Baroque style , especially in the dark and dramatic backgrounds of Caravaggio (La Tour was still a teenager when the archetypal artistic rebel died, or was killed), begs the question: where would the artist have seen and studied such paintings? As Feigenbaum writes, "there has been much unresolved discussion about a possible trip to Rome". La Tour had begun painting with Dogoz and it is thought that he could have travelled to Italy with Dogoz between 1614-16, where he discovered the paintings of Caravaggio. Feigenbaum acknowledges that "La Tour's low-life subjects and his bold tenebrist manner of painting seem to be heavily indebted to the work of Caravaggio [...] and his followers in Rome [such as Bartolomeo Manfredi]. But Caravaggio's influence was spreading throughout Europe in the second decade of the century so it was by no means necessary for La Tour to have made an Italian trip". Indeed, Gerrit van Honthorst and Dirck van Baburen were working in the Baroque style in Utrecht, while in Lorraine, Jacques Bellange and Jean Leclerc were both exploring the dramatic potential for tenebrist lighting effects.

Mature Period

La Tour was married to Diane Le Nerf, a woman of status and wealth, in 1617 (La Tour gave his profession as painter on the marriage certificate). Her family were silversmiths and her father served as the minister of finance to the Duke of Lorraine. Having lived at the Le Nerf's family residence in Vic, they settled in the city of Lunéville (15 miles south of Vic) following the birth of their first child (Philipp) in 1620. (The couple were parents to a total of nine or ten children, although only three would reach adulthood, including their son, Etienne, who was officially ennobled as a painter in 1670.) In Lunéville, La Tour joined the studio of Claude Baccarat and between 1621-24 the Duke bought two of La Tour's paintings. With his reputation secured, La Tour established his own workshop in Lunéville where he employed apprentices.

The La Tours lived through a time of great uncertainty. It was the period of the Thirty Year War (1618-48) and by the 1630s Lunéville was becoming increasingly unsafe. As historian Gabriel Diss states, "La Tour needed great determination and unflinching energy not to be crushed by the incursions of armed rabble, the hordes of poverty-stricken refugees, the state of famine and the plague that struck Lorraine three times, in 1631, 1633, and 1636. He shouldered the great responsibility of supplying the needs of a workshop and a family of nine children, a burden made still greater in 1631 when he was appointed guardian of his nephews Antoine and François Nardoyen. The records show that he performed his duties with fairness and clear-sightedness".

The independent duchy of Lorraine (now northeastern France) sat between France and the Germany of the Holy Roman Empire. The citizens of Lunéville (located within the duchy of Lorraine) were trapped in the war between these two mighty colonial powers and La Tour and his family lived with a constant fear for their safety. After his home was ransacked, and his workshop razed, during a sack of Lunéville by the French in 1638, La Tour moved his family 30km to Nancy. Despite his close friendship with the Duke of Lorraine, La Tour now pledged his loyalty to the French. With his family safely settled in Nancy, La Tour left for Paris in 1639 where he took up his most prestigious position as peintre du roi ("Painter in Ordinary to King Louis XIII of France"). He made such an impression in this role that he was granted permission to set up a living space in the Louvre a year later.

Later Period

Once Lorraine became secure again (now under control of the French) La Tour was able to return home with his family. According to records dated 1643 he established a successful new studio in Lunéville. He produced religious and domestic scenes, both genres of which were popular throughout Europe. According to author Philip Conisbee, "La Tour conducted his artistic affairs in a solidly professional way: there were contracts, agreements, and schedules of payment. We know that he ran a small studio [and engaged apprentices] who helped out in the day-to-day running of his business and learned at least the rudiments of art from him. He [also] presumably trained his son Etienne".

Feigenbaum writes that, "between 1644 and 1651, the marquis de La Ferté-Sénecterre [...] the French governor of Lorraine, received six of La Tour's paintings as tribute from the cities of the region". It was also during this period that his nocturne paintings became popular. Anchored in the Baroque style, it was through his nocturnes that La Tour distinguished himself among his peers in the subtle way he used light to dramatize the actions of his subjects. Historian Pat Bauer writes, "The paintings of La Tour's maturity [...] are marked by a startling geometric simplification of the human form and by the depiction of interior scenes lit only by the glare of candles or torches. His religious paintings done in this manner have a monumental simplicity and a stillness that expresses both contemplative quiet and wonder".

Tragically, the plague that swept through Europe in the 1650s ravaged Lorraine and it is believed to have been the cause of La Tour's wife's death in 1652. What wider success La Tour might have achieved will remain unknown as this epidemic, a possibly a deep sense of grief, most likely claimed the artist's life only two weeks after his wife's passing. La Tour was fifty-eight years old.

The Legacy of Georges de La Tour

According to the author Dimitri Salmon, "La Tour's works were seldom copied in engravings and hence little known, nor did he have a biographer to record his life for posterity. Finally, Lorraine was constantly devasted by war for three centuries, and with it not only the painter's workshop but also the churches, monasteries, castles and mansions where his paintings hung". It wasn't until the early twentieth century that art historians began to examine La Tour's work through a contemporary lens, beginning in 1915 through the writings of art historian Hermann Voss. Calling his art "one of the great rediscoveries of the 20 th century", the historian Susan Moore states, "Today it seems inconceivable that this most compelling and singular of artists, highly successful in his day, should have been almost entirely forgotten for three centuries. [...] The reconstruction and rehabilitation of his artistic career have been described as 'the triumph of art history, and its justification'".

La Tour's work has had a profound influence on subsequent generations of artists. As Salmon states, "it is the fame of these works which is taken to task by the artists of the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century as much as their beauty and the interest they arouse. Whatever their age, their career path or their nationality, whatever their aim or their technique, in their own way, today's artists - from the Chinese artist Yin Xin to the Mexican Alejandra Figueroa, the French artists Jérome Mesnager, Gérard Collin-Thiébaut and Frédéric Coché and the Italian Gerardo Dicrola - amply illustrate the tremendous infatuation with Georges de La Tour and the fascination that his Christ with Saint Joseph in the Carpenter's Shop and Adoration of the Shepherds exert more powerfully than ever before".

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources on Georges de La Tour

• Georges de La Tour and his World Our Pick By Philip Conisbee
• Georges de La Tour By Jacques Thuillier
• Georges de La Tour and the Enigma of the Visible By Dalia Judovitz
• Georges de La Tour: The Adoration of the Shepherds Christ with Saint Joseph in the Carpenter's Shop Our Pick Edited by Valeria Merlini, Dimitri Salmon, and Daniela Storti
• Flickers of genius By Laura Cumming / The Observer / July 15, 2007
• Georges de la Tour: The Fortune Teller - c1630s By Deanna MacDonald / Great Works of Western Art
• The Fortune-Teller Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• A sale in Cologne turns the spotlight on Georges de La Tour By Susan Moore / Apollo Magazine / November 25, 2020
• French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century By Gail Feigenbaum / The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue, Washington, D.C. / 2009
• Georges de La Tour By Pat Bauer / Britannica.com
• Georges de La Tour's paintings in the UK: French Caravaggism in Leicester, Wiltshire and Teesside Our Pick By Christopher Wright / Art UK / January 19, 2012
• A Sale in Cologne Turns the Spotlight on Georges de La Tour By Susan Moore / Apollo Magazine / November 25, 2020
• Georges de La Tour's Penitent Magdalen | Painting of the Week Podcast | S3 EP17 This podcast provides an indepth look at Georges de La Tour's painting the Penitent Magdalen
• Lecture: Dr. Lynn Orr, Ph. D - September 28, 2019 This lecture presented at the Portland Museum of Art features Dr. Lynn Orr discussing Georges de La Tour's nocturne painting The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame
• George de La Tour National Gallery of Art

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Content compiled and written by Jessica DiPalma

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Antony Todd

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Georges de La Tour by Dalia Judovitz LAST REVIEWED: 24 September 2020 LAST MODIFIED: 24 September 2020 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0454

Georges de La Tour’s (b. 1593–d. 1652) artistic contributions were largely ignored by posterity until his “rediscovery” in 1915 by the art historian Hermann Voss. The patronage of such luminaries as the Duke of Lorraine, King Louis XIII , and Cardinal Richelieu, and the plethora of early copies, attest to his success during his lifetime. His eventual lapse into obscurity lasting almost three centuries led to the reattribution of his works to Italian, Netherlandish, Spanish, or French Baroque painters. While more than seventy oil paintings have been attributed to La Tour, fewer than forty are accepted as originals. The existence of his paintings in two or more versions, some as autograph replicas or as copies, along with questions about his son Étienne de La Tour’s possible pictorial contributions, left the attribution and chronology of his works mired in conjecture and controversy. Born the second son of a baker of some means at Vic-sur-Seille, he married a widow of minor nobility in 1617. Resettling to Luneville in the Duchy of Lorraine, he gained recognition as a painter in a region devastated by the ravages of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648). A casualty of an epidemic, La Tour died a few days after his wife at the height of his artistic career. The scarcity of documentary sources about his life is compounded by the total absence of evidence concerning his artistic training, professional travels, and artistic influences. La Tour’s pursuit of likeness between image and the natural world is believed to bear the influence of Caravaggio or his followers, reflecting post-Tridentine calls for the revitalization of religious imagery. La Tour’s paintings have been traditionally divided into daylight and night-time works, despite notable exceptions. Depictions of daylight serve to bring into moralizing relief foibles of secular life shown in realist genre scenes of brawling, cheating, and fortune-telling. Biblically inspired, his mysterious nocturnal or tenebrist works glow with a poetic luminosity imbued with spiritual connotations. Suspended in the stillness of religious contemplation, his candlelight paintings bear witness to the presence of inner life, depicting modes of consciousness that painting may only suggest but cannot ultimately show. Celebrated for their aura of mystery, his paintings continue to invite scholarly interest and public fascination.

Scholarly monographs and exhibition catalogues have played an influential role in La Tour’s presentation to scholars and the broader public. The monographs selected for the most part include presentations of the painter’s life accompanied by interpretive analyses of his works. Full, authoritative art-historical accounts in French can be found in large-format monographs, notably the groundbreaking study Pariset 1948 , the summary of his life and works in Rosenberg and Macé de L’Épinay 1973 , the magisterial volume Thuillier 2002 , and most recently, the comprehensive account Fohr 2018 , which updates the scholarship and pictorial references. An indispensable biographical account is in Reinbold 1991 . A readable overview of his life and works in small format can be found in Choné 1996 , also in French. There are some excellent studies available in English, namely Furness 1949 , an inaugural volume that outlines key issues in a pictorial corpus still under construction. An authoritative introduction and discussion of his works can be found in Nicolson and Wright 1974 , in English. A thematic analysis of depicted figures and their Baroque stylistic implications is presented in Le Floch 1995 , in French. A detailed analysis of La Tour’s treatment of light, critique of sight, and pictorial strategies can be found in Judovitz 2018 , in English.

Choné, Paulette. Georges de La Tour: Un peintre lorrain au XVIIe siècle . Tournai, Belgium: Casterman, 1996.

Presenting a useful overview of the painter’s life and works based on solid scholarly research, this volume places special emphasis on La Tour’s regional sources and development as a painter in Lorraine.

Fohr, Robert. Georges de La Tour: Le maître des nuits . Paris: Cohen & Cohen, 2018.

This richly illustrated and carefully researched large-format monograph combines a well-documented narrative of La Tour’s life with revealing insights on his works. An impressive array and display of comparative paintings enhances the scope of the analysis. It is a revised, augmented, and updated re-edition of Georges de La Tour: Le maître des nuits (Paris: Adam Biro, 1997). In French.

Furness, M. S. S. Georges de La Tour of Lorraine 1593–1652 . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949.

Overlooked, but still-relevant inaugural monograph published in English on La Tour is grounded in extensive research built on the findings of Pariset 1948 . Summing up the essentials about the painter’s life, it provides insightful discussions on the pictorial style and content of his works.

Judovitz, Dalia. Georges de La Tour and the Enigma of the Visible . New York: Fordham University Press, 2018.

A comprehensive study of La Tour’s treatment of light and pictorial strategies follows a brief introduction to his life and works. Complementing an analysis of the illusionism and deceptive character of the Baroque visual image, this study breaks new ground by exploring instances of pictorial self-awareness.

Le Floch, Jean-Claude. Le signe de contradiction: Essai sur Georges de La Tour et son œuvre . Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 1995.

Focused primarily on La Tour’s paintings, this volume approaches with insight and finesse La Tour’s style and choice of subject matter in terms of Baroque aesthetics, revealing patterns of ambiguity and contradiction that pervade his works.

Nicolson, Benedict, and Cristopher Wright. Georges de La Tour . New York: Phaidon, 1974.

By-now-classic monograph in large format introduced La Tour’s life and works to Anglo-American audiences. It brings together biographical and pictorial concerns, attempts to construct a chronology of his works, and provides a catalogue of his works.

Pariset, François-Georges. Georges de La Tour . Paris: Henri Laurens, 1948.

This foundational scholarly work provides an extensive account of La Tour’s life, painterly influences, and historical context along with pictorial interpretations built around key themes which help organize his works. It continues to be an important scholarly resource.

Reinbold, Anne. Georges de La Tour . Paris: Fayard, 1991.

An influential biography based on extensive archival research outlines with historical precision and insight the state of knowledge about the painter’s life, social connections, and cultural milieu in Lorraine.

Rosenberg, Pierre, and François Macé de L’Épinay. Georges de La Tour: Vie et œuvre . Fribourg, Switzerland: Office du Livre, 1973.

A presentation of the artist’s life and accompanying catalogue provides an overview of his pictorial corpus. Discussions regarding the dating, provenance, and prior exhibition of these works delineate the state of research at the time.

Thuillier, Jacques. Georges de La Tour . Translated by Fabia Claris. Paris: Flammarion, 2002.

This magisterial, large-format monograph on La Tour in English surveys the painter’s life and works. Insightful analyses are accompanied by extensive illustrations and enlargements of pictorial details. This is an updated translation and re-edition of a volume originally published in French in 1992 that reprised his earlier catalogue of La Tour’s works, Tout l’oeuvre peint de Georges de La Tour (Paris: Flammarion, 1973).

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THE ART BOG

Biography: georges de la tour.

Georges de La Tour, born on March 19, 1593, in the Duchy of Lorraine, now in France, was a painter whose work is celebrated for its unique use of light and shadow, capturing the quietude and spiritual depth of his subjects. De La Tour’s life and career were largely spent in relative obscurity, with much of his work being rediscovered and appreciated only in the 20th century. His paintings, primarily religious in nature, exhibit a profound understanding of human emotion, rendered with a simplicity and directness that speak to the viewer across the centuries.

De La Tour’s early life is shrouded in mystery, with few records detailing his upbringing or initial artistic training. It is believed that he traveled to Italy early in his career, where he was exposed to the works of Caravaggio. This exposure would have a lasting impact on his artistic style, particularly Caravaggio’s use of chiaroscuro, the dramatic interplay of light and dark, which De La Tour adapted and made his own. Unlike Caravaggio’s often turbulent scenes, De La Tour’s use of this technique imbued his works with a sense of peace and contemplation.

Settling in Lunéville, De La Tour became a painter to the court of Lorraine, receiving commissions from local religious institutions and the Duchy’s court. His works from this period include a series of nocturnal scenes, such as “The Penitent Magdalene” and “Saint Joseph the Carpenter,” which are remarkable for their use of candlelight to illuminate the subjects, creating an intimate atmosphere that invites reflection.

De La Tour’s compositions are notable for their simplicity and restraint. His figures are often depicted in moments of quiet introspection or gentle interaction, imbued with a sense of dignity and grace. This understated elegance, combined with his mastery of light, sets De La Tour apart from his contemporaries, giving his paintings a timeless quality that resonates with modern audiences.

Despite his success and recognition by the court, De La Tour’s work fell into obscurity after his death in 1652. It wasn’t until the early 20th century that art historians began to piece together his oeuvre, attributing works previously assigned to other artists to De La Tour. This rediscovery sparked a renewed interest in his art, highlighting his significance in the Baroque period and his influence on subsequent generations of artists.

De La Tour’s legacy is that of a master of light, whose paintings capture the essence of human experience with a rare sensitivity and depth. His ability to convey the spiritual and emotional life of his subjects with such clarity and simplicity has established him as a pivotal figure in the history of art. Today, Georges de La Tour is celebrated for his contributions to the Baroque movement and his unique approach to painting, which continues to inspire and move viewers with its profound beauty and humanity.

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ARTS & CULTURE

From darkness into light: rediscovering georges de la tour.

Long forgotten after his death in 1652, he is now embraced by the French as an icon; an exhibition touring this country shows why

Helen Dudar

It is one of the gnawing anomalies of art scholarship that Georges de La Tour was "lost" for nearly three centuries and yet with us all the time. His luminous paintings were on view in public and private spaces, wearing labels identifying them as the work of Murillo, or Velázquez or Caravaggio.

La Tour, who was born in 1593 and worked for most, if not all,of his life in Lorraine, was rediscovered at the beginning of this century. His paintings, of mendicant hurdy-gurdy players, rascally cardsharps and hypnotic holy figures, are now on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. "Georges de La Tour and His World," which includes 27 of the artist's 40 or so known works, will be in place until January 5, 1997; it will then travel to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, where it will run from February 2 to May 11. La Tour created more than one painting of several of his subjects, and these "autograph versions" can be seen side by side, inviting comparison and providing context.

In the 1630s La Tour turned his attention to nocturnes — pictures of figures magically caught in the light and shadow of a flickering candle flame. The keynote work in the show, The Newborn Child , offers a young mother gazing raptly at her swaddled infant, illuminated by a candle held by an older woman. Is it a nativity scene? Scholars disagree.

La Tour died in 1652, probably of the plague. His legacy was one of enduring beauty.

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Helen Dudar | READ MORE

• 1. La notoriété et l'oubli
• 2. Entre maniérisme et caravagisme
• 3. Une chronologie incertaine
• 4. Le « mystère La Tour »
• 5. Bibliographie

LA TOUR GEORGES DE (1593-1652)

• Article mis en ligne le 19/01/1999
• Modifié le 14/03/2009
• Écrit par Robert FOHR

La « redécouverte » de Georges de La Tour, peintre renommé en son temps, mais tombé dans l'oubli après sa mort, est une grande conquête de l'histoire de l'art. Lorsqu'en 1835 Prosper Mérimée, inspecteur des Monuments historiques, admirait du magnifique Viell eur du musée des Beaux-Arts à Nantes – qu'il croyait de Velázquez – l'« ignoble et effroyable vérité », plus aucun tableau, dans aucun musée du monde, ne portait en effet le nom de Georges de La Tour. Il fallut attendre la publication, en 1863, des patientes recherches d'archives d'un érudit lorrain, Alexandre Joly, puis leur exploitation, en 1915, par un jeune chercheur allemand plein d'intuition, Hermann Voss, pour que resurgisse enfin des ténèbres qui l'enveloppaient l'une des plus hautes figures de la peinture occidentale. Si, depuis cette époque, les travaux poursuivis par quelques spécialistes et la réapparition, ou la réattribution de maints tableaux, originaux et copies, ont permis de mieux cerner la personnalité artistique de La Tour, bien des éléments font encore défaut qui permettraient de reconstituer le puzzle de sa vie et de son œuvre, et de mieux comprendre sa personnalité.

La notoriété et l'oubli

Fils d'un boulanger de Vic, aujourd'hui Vic-sur-Seille, dans l'évêché de Metz , Georges de La Tour naît en mars 1593. Il est issu de ce milieu relativement aisé d'artisans et de petits propriétaires qui, dans l'ancienne France, fut de tout temps une réserve d'élites. Son mariage, en 1617, avec Diane Le Nerf, fille d'un argentier du duc de Lorraine Henri II, alliée à toute la noblesse locale, marque le début de son ascension sociale. En 1620, l'artiste décide de s'installer à Lunéville, berceau de la famille de sa femme, parce qu'il sait que le marché nancéien, dominé par Jacques de Bellange jusqu'à sa mort en 1616, mais bientôt investi par Claude Deruet et Jean Le Clerc revenus d'Italie respectivement en 1619 et vers 1622, lui est en grande partie fermé. Dans cette petite ville où le duc fait alors bâtir un nouveau château, il peut à la fois compter sur de solides appuis et devenir, sans nul risque de concurrence, un peintre prospère. Les marques de la faveur ducale ne se font guère attendre : nanti dès 1620 de lettres d'exemption fiscale qui lui confèrent des privilèges voisins de ceux de la noblesse, il exécute pour Henri II, en 1623 et 1624, deux tableaux, aujourd'hui perdus. Bien que ses prix soient très en dessous de ceux pratiqués par un Deruet, son activité semble vite des plus florissantes : engagement d'apprentis, achat d'une coûteuse propriété à Lunéville, tout indique déjà, dans les années 1625-1630, une belle réussite. Cependant, entre 1631 et 1635, l'horizon s'obscurcit : la Lorraine, investie par les Français en lutte contre les Impériaux, entre dans la guerre de Trente Ans. Frappée par la peste à deux reprises, rançonnée par les troupes de passage, Lunéville est finalement incendiée en 1638. À cette occasion disparaît sans doute une bonne part de l'œuvre de La Tour. Soucieux de ses intérêts, le peintre se rallie très vite aux Français : en 1634, après l'abdication du duc Charles IV, il prête serment de fidélité à Louis XIII, avec d'autres personnalités de Lunéville ; en 1636, sa fille Marie est portée sur les fonts par le gouverneur français du lieu, le capitaine Sambat de Pédamont, puis soudain, en 1639, l'artiste est mentionné dans un acte de baptême comme « peintre ordinaire du Roy ». Ce titre inattendu, qui a fait couler beaucoup d'encre, a trouvé naguère un début d'explication grâce à la découverte, dans les comptes royaux du premier semestre 1639, d'une mention portant versement à « Georges de La Tour » de « la somme de mil livres [...] pour le voïage qu'il est venu faire de [...]

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Article mis en ligne le 19/01/1999 et modifié le 14/03/2009

La Rixe des musiciens , G. de La Tour

Christie's Images, Bridgeman Images

Saint Sébastien soigné par sainte Irène , G. de La Tour

G. Dagli orti/ De Agostini/ Getty Images

Le Tricheur à l'as de carreau, G. de La Tour

Picturenow/ Universal Images Group/ Getty Images

Autres références

GEORGES DE LA TOUR (exposition)

• Écrit par Barthélémy JOBERT

En 1972, une mémorable exposition tenue à l'Orangerie des Tuileries a fait connaître à un large public l'envergure de Georges de La Tour (1593-1652), redécouvert depuis à peine une soixantaine d'années. Les relations du peintre avec le milieu artistique lorrain, si actif à son époque,...

ORANGERIE, 1934 : LES PEINTRES DE LA RÉALITÉ (exposition)

• Écrit par Milovan STANIC

Des expositions sur les « peintres de la réalité », il y en eut plusieurs : celle organisée à Paris par le musée de l'Orangerie et la Réunion des musées nationaux du 22 novembre 2006 au 5 mars 2007, destinée à établir un lien symbolique entre le passé et l'avenir de la maison des ...

TÉNÉBRISME

• Écrit par Jean-Pierre MOUILLESEAUX

Historiquement, le ténébrisme s'affirme autour des peintres du xvii e  siècle qui ont suivi la leçon de Caravage dans l'utilisation de l'ombre comme moyen d'expression plastique, peintres appelés pour cela tenebrosi . Il faut donc remonter à Caravage, à son sens de la lumière...

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Georges De La Tour Biography and Artwork

Georges de La Tour is a Baroque painter renowned for his luminous religious paintings. He was born in 1593 in Vic-sur-Seille, Lorraine, to a family of bakers. Initially trained as a painter by his father before going on to study with other artists, La Tour gained acclaim for masterfully manipulating light and shadow.

La Tour’s style was particularly influenced by Caravaggio’s use of chiaroscuro or the interplay of light and shadow in his works. His paintings often feature everyday people like peasants portrayed with great sensitivity and dignity.

His early masterpiece, The Fortune Teller from the 1630s, made him prominent in Upper Lorraine’s artistic circles. Although he spent most of his life in the Duchy of Lorraine – an independent state until temporarily absorbed into France from 1641-1648 – many regard him as one of France’s greatest painters.

Unfortunately, La Tour was forgotten after his death until the twentieth century when scholars discovered previously misattributed works. They were able to recognize that what had been perceived as Dutch painting was instead likely French and identified them as La Tour’s pieces.

In conclusion, Georges de La Tour remains significant not only for elevating everyday people through luminous religious scenes but also because rediscovered attributions continue to emerge several centuries after his passing.

All Georges De La Tour Artwork on Artchive

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• Peinture 17e siècle

Georges de La Tour

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Patrick AULNAS

 1593-1652

Georges Dumesnil de La Tour est né en 1593 à Vic-sur-Seille, près de Metz, en Lorraine, dans une famille de boulangers. Sa période de formation est très mal connue car il n’existe que très peu de documents le concernant. Les jeunes peintres de l’époque souhaitaient tous aller à Rome et partaient parfois en groupe vers la capitale italienne. Certains historiens supposent que de La Tour a fait le voyage de cette manière. Il aurait pu alors voir les œuvres du réalisme baroque de Caravage dont les clair-obscur inspireront ses tableaux. Selon d’autres historiens, il n’a jamais été à Rome et son caravagisme proviendrait des hollandais Gerrit van Honthorst (1590-1656) et Hendrick Terbrugghen (1588-1629) appartenant à l’école caravagesque d’Utrecht.

Georges de La Tour. Le Nouveau-né (1645-48) Huile sur toile, 76 × 91 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes.

En 1617, il épouse Diane Le Nerf, originaire de Lunéville ; le couple s’installe dans cette ville. Il va rapidement conquérir une célébrité locale et les commandes de tableaux de la bourgeoisie et de la noblesse lorraine vont affluer : sujets religieux et scènes de genre représentant en particulier des musiciens ou des mendiants. La prospérité de la famille ne tarde pas : elle devient l’une des plus riches de Lunéville et, dès 1620, le peintre est reçu « bourgeois de Lunéville ». De La Tour a cependant acquis une réputation de pingrerie attestée par des plaintes de son personnel de maison indiquant qu’on mange fort mal chez lui.

Il fera un séjour à Paris, mais quasiment contraint et forcé. La guerre de Trente ans (1618-1648) qui déchire l’Europe va provoquer un grave incendie à Lunéville, en septembre 1638, qui détruit la maison du peintre. La famille se réfugie d’abord à Nancy, puis à Paris où de La Tour est logé au Louvre et devient « peintre ordinaire du Roy ». Ce titre, que revendiquait de La Tour, ne semble cependant pas être attesté par un quelconque document. Dès 1641, sa maison est reconstruite et la famille regagne Lunéville. Le succès se maintiendra jusqu’à la mort du peintre en 1652, causée par une épidémie qui tuera huit personnes dans sa maison (dont sa femme) et plus de huit mille à Lunéville. Le couple laissait trois enfants.

Œuvre

Georges de La Tour sera complètement oublié après sa mort. Le fait qu’il n’ait signé que très peu de ses œuvres a sans doute facilité cet oubli. C’est l’historien d’art allemand Hermann Voss (1884-1969) qui redécouvre le peintre en 1915 : il lui attribue deux toiles du musée des Beaux-arts de Nantes. Dès lors, d’autres historiens et collectionneurs s’intéressent à de La Tour et, en 1934, une exposition au musée de l’Orangerie à Paris présente treize œuvres de l’artiste oublié. Bien d’autres découvertes suivront. On lui attribue aujourd’hui avec certitude une trentaine d’œuvres.

Georges de La Tour. La Diseuse de bonne aventure (1633-39) Huile sur toile, 102 × 123,5 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Analyse détaillée

Il existe peu de peintres capables d’exercer une telle fascination sur le spectateur. Est-ce l’extrême dépouillement des scènes qu’on a parfois qualifiées de stoïciennes, est-ce la dimension spirituelle, de toute évidence omniprésente, ou encore l’impression de sérénité qui se dégage de chaque tableau ? Si l’esthétique du peintre lorrain est empruntée à Caravage, l’esprit en est très éloigné. Car, au fil du temps, il s’agit de moins en moins de réalisme, mais plutôt d’une sorte de recherche de la quintessence du sujet traité. La rigueur géométrique et les jeux d’ombre et de lumière doivent révéler les secrets indicibles de l’âme humaine. La maîtrise technique permet de se limiter à l’essentiel et de donner à des compositions apparemment simples une force impressionnante.

Les scènes diurnes

Les tableaux diurnes se situent dans la période 1620-1640. Le style est inspiré de Caravage, tant en ce qui concerne la lumière que les gestes et les regards qui structurent l’esthétique de la toile (voir ci-après les deux Diseuses de bonne aventures  : Caravage et de La Tour). Le chef-d’œuvre est sans doute Le Tricheur .

Les scènes nocturnes

Les premiers tableaux nocturnes se rattachent au réalisme caravagesque ; puis de La Tour va évoluer vers une sobriété qui constitue sa singularité. Le nouveau-né représente le point culminant du génie de l’artiste. Il s’agit de l’un des tableaux qui a permis à Hermann Voss de redécouvrir le peintre en 1915. Si le clair-obscur reste caravagesque, nous sommes loin du réalisme du maître italien. De La Tour nous propose une épure traduisant la quintessence du lien mère-enfant. L’œuvre semble provenir d’une longue méditation sur le sujet. Elle ne peut voir le jour au 17 e siècle que chez un peintre d’exception qui est au sommet de son art. Une telle économie de moyens au service d’une telle puissance expressive ne se retrouvera pas avant la fin du 19 e ou le 20 e siècle.

Pour visionner d'autres œuvres sur GOOGLE ARTS & CULTURE, cliquer sur le nom du peintre :

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The Fortune-Teller

Georges de La Tour French

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 622

Darting eyes and busy hands create a captivating narrative between otherwise staid figures, each of which is richly clothed in meticulously painted combinations of color and texture. La Tour took on a theme popularized in Northern Europe by prints and in Rome by Caravaggio: an old Roma (formerly identified with the derisive term "Gypsy") woman reads the young man’s fortune as her beautiful companions take the opportunity to rob him. This celebrated painting, which was only discovered in the mid-twentieth century, is inscribed with the name of the town where the artist lived in northeastern France, supporting the possibility that he developed such works independent of Caravaggio’s precedent.

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#5104. The Fortune Teller

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Artwork Details

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Title: The Fortune-Teller

Artist: Georges de La Tour (French, Vic-sur-Seille 1593–1652 Lunéville)

Date: probably 1630s

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 40 1/8 x 48 5/8 in. (101.9 x 123.5 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1960

Accession Number: 60.30

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European Paintings at The Met

Georges de La Tour

March 1593 - jan 30, 1652, discover this artist, related works from the web, magdalene with the smoking flame, www.wikidata.org magdalene with the smoking flame - wikidata, the penitent magdalene (1640), www.wikidata.org the penitent magdalen - wikidata, joseph the carpenter, www.wikidata.org joseph the carpenter - wikidata, the card sharp with the ace of diamonds (1635), en.wikipedia.org the card sharp with the ace of diamonds - wikipedia, job mocked by his wife, www.wikidata.org job mocked by his wife - wikidata, the dream of saint joseph, www.wikidata.org the apparition of the angel to st. joseph - wikidata, the newborn child (1648), www.wikiart.org the newborn, c.1640 - c.1649 - georges de la tour - wikiart.org, the dice players (1651), www.wikiart.org the dice players, 1650 - 1651 - georges de la tour - wikiart.org, the musicians' brawl (1630), en.wikipedia.org the musicians' brawl - wikipedia, st. sebastien attended by st. irene, www.wikidata.org saint sebastian attended by saint irene - wikidata, more artists, simon vouet, gerard van honthorst, hendrick ter brugghen, matthias stom, claude vignon, valentin de boulogne, more art movements, 26,504 items, 21,319 items, antwerp school, 2,267 items, more mediums, 54,676 items.

• Georges de La Tour

Dafato Team | Jan 19, 2023

Table of Content

Childhood and education, first works in lunéville, paris and end of life, description of his work, list of paintings.

Georges de La Tour was a painter from Lorraine, baptized on March 14, 1593 in Vic-sur-Seille and died on January 30, 1652 in Lunéville.

An artist at the confluence of Nordic, Italian and French cultures, contemporary of Jacques Callot and the Le Nain brothers, La Tour was a penetrating observer of everyday reality. His pronounced taste for the play of light and shadow makes him one of the most original continuators of Caravaggio.

Recognized during his lifetime, he was quickly forgotten after his death. Rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century, he then inspired writers as diverse as René Char, André Malraux, Pascal Quignard and Charles Juliet.

Georges de La Tour was baptized on March 14, 1593 in Vic-sur-Seille, seat of the bailliage of the Bishopric of Metz, occupied by the King of France since 1552. The baptismal record of Georges de La Tour, preserved in the Georges-de-La-Tour Departmental Museum in Vic-sur-Seille, indicates that he was the son of "Jean de la Tour, baker" and Sibylle Molian, also from a baker's family. He is the second of seven children in the family.

His background, and particularly his early training, remains unknown. He began his career as a painter and may have met the Dutch masters of the Caravaggesque school in Utrecht, Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick ter Brugghen, during a trip in 1616. It has been suggested that he traveled to Rome where he discovered the work of Caravaggio, but there is no evidence of this, and while he is clearly influenced by Caravaggio, this influence seems to have been passed on to him through his knowledge of the work of Hendrick ter Brugghen, a painter to whom he has often been compared. An Annunciation by Caravaggio, commissioned by Duke Henry II of Lorraine, was also in Nancy, and La Tour must have seen it. Georges de La Tour would therefore be one of the few French painters of the time who did not undertake the classic trip to Italy.

On July 2, 1617, he married Diane Le Nerf, a member of a noble family from Lunéville, a town in the Duchy of Lorraine. The couple settled in this city where La Tour began a brilliant career under the reign of Duke Henry II of Lorraine, an admirer of Caravaggio and married to an Italian princess, Marguerite de Gonzague, niece of the Queen Mother of France. In 1619, he moved to the court of the Château de Lunéville. In 1620, he was even received as a "bourgeois" of the city, endowed by the Duke with letters of exemption which granted him the franchises granted to members of the nobility.

He multiplied paintings with religious subjects but also genre scenes, realistic paintings representing musicians and beggars. He received commissions from the Duke, the church of the Minimes in Lunéville and from Charles IV. He himself became one of the richest inhabitants of Lunéville and also received numerous commissions from the bourgeoisie and nobility of Lorraine, although he did not succeed in becoming the official painter of Duke Henri II, this office being then the prerogative of Claude Deruet. No large-scale commissions are known to us; his paintings are mostly of modest proportions: often one meter high.

But from 1633, Lorraine, which had been prosperous and safe until then but had recently been ruled by the clumsy Duke Charles IV, sank into the destruction of the Thirty Years' War. The duchy was invaded and occupied by France and became one of the battlefields of Europe at war. In 1635, Swedish troops ravaged the region, spreading death and desolation. The Croats were no less cruel and greedy. Lunéville, where La Tour lived, was burned down in September 1638 and the painter was forced to flee the city to take refuge with his family in Nancy, where he was found from February 8, 1639.

The success of Georges de La Tour was established quite quickly, since documents mention commissions "in the manner of La Tour", distinguishing his style among contemporaries. In 1645, he reproduced the Souffleurs and the Fumeurs, small formats that pleased the bourgeoisie.

The king of France tried to attract artists from Lorraine. While Jacques Callot refused, Georges de La Tour accepted and went to Paris. It is known that in 1639 he received the title of "ordinary painter to the king" as well as a place to live in the Louvre, as King Louis XIII owned a Saint Sebastian treated by Irene by his hand. But his possessions and privileges were at home, in Lorraine, and as soon as his house was rebuilt, in 1641, he returned to Lunéville. He was always successful, since the Duke de la Ferté, French governor of the Duchy of Lorraine, was offered a painting by the master for his birthday present - especially of night scenes - the first being a Nativity in January 1645.

The works of the end of his life represent exclusively religious scenes - although marked by genre painting - probably, according to the critic Anthony Blunt, because of the renewed importance of religious life due to the Franciscans in Lorraine after the Thirty Years' War, as Lorraine was still occupied by the French soldiery.

According to his death certificate, Georges de la Tour died of "pleurisy" on January 30, 1652 in Lunéville, but probably from an epidemic that first took his wife Diane on January 15, 1652 and his valet Jean "dit Montauban" on January 22. His work quickly sinks into oblivion.

His son Etienne (1621-1692), who had been his apprentice, the only heir of the painter with two sisters who did not marry, was to realize his father's dream: to buy the freehold estate of Mesnil near Lunéville, and to gain his letters of nobility, in order to forget his commoner origin.

Very famous in his time, Georges de la Tour then fell into oblivion. His works were dispersed and attributed to other painters: Italians, such as Guido Reni, Carlo Saraceni or Orazio Gentileschi, Dutch, such as Hendrick Terbrugghen or Gerrit van Honthorst, and sometimes even Spaniards, such as Francisco de Zurbarán and Velázquez. Very few of his paintings are signed, and sometimes his signature has been deliberately erased to create a more prestigious attribution for the time.

No relics of La Tour's life have been identified so far: portraits, personal objects, books, homes, as well as his grave, all seem to have disappeared.

Mérimée in Notes d'un voyage dans l'Ouest de la France, then, Stendhal, in Les Mémoires d'un touriste, published in 1838, discovering the Old Man Playing the Vielle, both attribute it to the school of Seville, speaking of Murillo or Velasquez.

His Newborn in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes was attributed to Le Nain by Hippolyte Taine in 1863, while Louis Gonse, in 1900, mentioned the names of Rembrandt, Vermeer and an unidentified caravagist.

Some of his paintings can even be found under the name of Quentin de La Tour, because of the proximity of the surname to that of the painter from Lorraine, even though he was born more than a century after Georges de La Tour and painted in a completely different style.

Georges de La Tour was rediscovered only in 1915, by the German art historian Hermann Voss (1884-1969) from two paintings in the Nantes Museum of Art, The Appearance of the Angel to Saint Joseph and The Denial of Saint Peter, which are signed and one of them dated, which is very rare in La Tour's work, allowing Voss to immediately attribute to him The Newborn of the Rennes museum (the third painting of Nantes, The Old Man, will be attributed only in 1931). The work of Hermann Voss - who relied in particular on the earlier and somewhat ignored work of Alexandre Joly in 1863 - made it possible to reattribute several paintings with daylight - and rightly placed Georges de La Tour among the greatest "French" painters of the 17th century, even though he was a Lorrain.

An exhibition entitled "Les Peintres de la Réalité en France au XVIIe siècle" (The Painters of Reality in France in the 17th Century), organized at the Musée de l'Orangerie from November 1934 to February 1935, allowed the public to discover him. It was the first time that thirteen of the fifteen paintings then attributed to the artist were brought together and it was a revelation. In 1948, a thesis by François-Georges Pariset reinforced Voss' work.

Since then, work and studies on the work of Georges de La Tour have multiplied and have allowed the identification of a production of about one hundred paintings, of which about forty have survived: he is thus considered today as one of the greatest and most original French masters of his time. In 1960, his Fortune Teller was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which provoked a controversy over the authorization of the departure of such an important work from French territory, and a new exhibition was devoted to the painter at the Orangerie in 1972.

Contemporary artists insist on the influence that Georges de La Tour has had or may still have on their works. Richelet claims to be inspired by him for his representations of emaciated bodies inspired by his Saint Jérôme pénitent.

Vic-sur-Seille, his native town in Lorraine, has dedicated a museum to him, the Georges-de-La-Tour departmental museum, which brings together, among other things, works from the painter's time and school, as well as a recently acquired painting by his hand (Saint John the Baptist in the Desert) and a Head of a Woman that was probably part of a larger painting that has disappeared.

The early works of de La Tour are characterized by the influence of Caravaggio, probably via his Dutch followers, particularly in the choice of genre scenes featuring cheating and deception (The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds or The Fortune Teller, for example) or hobo brawls (themes that were popularized by the Dutch artists). These works are to be placed relatively early in the painter's career - before 1640 at any rate. His early works also show the influence of the Lorraine painter Jacques Bellange.

La Tour is particularly famous for the chiaroscuro effects he introduced into his night scenes, a technique he developed far better than any of his northern European predecessors, while transferring its use, until then reserved for genre painting by the Dutch, to religious subjects. Unlike Caravaggio, La Tour's religious paintings do not present dramatic or theatrical effects or monumentalization of the figures, so that they can easily be confused with genre scenes, those scenes of daily life of which Flemish and Dutch painting of the time was fond: The Nativity in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes is one of the best examples. Paulette Choné evokes the hypothesis that this painting could only represent an ordinary nativity, that it would be about a newborn child and not Jesus Christ, but she immediately rejects it "especially because of the symbolic density, the almost liturgical gravity of the gesture of the servant. This second phase in his pictorial production began in the 1640's. The geometric compositions and simplification of forms that he implemented clearly show the particularity of his approach to chiaroscuro and the lessons of Caravaggio, which clearly placed him on the fringe of the tenebrist movement of José de Ribera and the Italian followers of Caravaggio. His style seems to be without equal. His chromatic palette is characterized by harmonies of reds, browns and whites with very few dissonant colors. The use of a slight simplification of forms, the great precision of the drawing for the details and the absence, in his paintings, of composition built around violent lines so common in Caravaggio's painting are all characteristics of the art of Georges de La Tour.

The unique style he developed, as well as his predilection for tightly framed nocturnal subjects, where the source of light is most of the time only a candle, also often make it possible to immediately recognize a painting as being by his hand or, at least, by his school.

He often painted several versions of the same painting (such as the Cheat with an Ace) but his output - or what remains of it - is relatively small. His son Étienne, his works having often been imitated or copied, as well as the lack of sources and documents on his life and work, make it often difficult to establish the corpus of works by Georges de La Tour, only about thirty having been reliably attributed to him. The work of attribution is therefore not yet complete.

The relationship between literature and painting is close: painting, for many years, was not autonomous but under the tutelage of literature. Moreover, painting had a properly religious and political function. Georges de La Tour was himself appointed painter of King Louis XIII, and thus a court painter before he was forgotten. Little by little, literature referred more and more to painting, either "by mimetic competition or by fascination for its aesthetic autonomy", according to the words of Daniel Bergez. Georges de La Tour is a painter of the seventeenth century, but his work since its rediscovery in the 1930s, has been the subject of many writers. The book, as an object, is a recurring element in the representations of Georges de La Tour. It allows the painter to exercise his pictorial technique of light: it offers the possibility of playing with the light on its various angles. The book is an exercise in style for the painter. The most represented book is without question the Bible. Georges de La Tour is no exception to this general remark: we know that the mastery of light is an important part of his work through his use of tenebrism. In addition, he depicted many religious subjects featuring the Vulgate. We can cite Saint Jerome Penitent which perfectly illustrates the idea of dialogue and tension between the image and the book as well as The Apparition of the Angel to Saint Joseph also called the Dream of Saint Joseph. From the nineteenth century, painting becomes a source of creation for literature; either the writer tries to restore a pictorial rendering with his style, or literature is transformed into a writing of painting. Finally, in the twentieth century, writers were inspired by pictorial art in a poetic aim among which we find famous surrealists such as André Breton and Paul Eluard. We can also mention: René Char, Henri Michaux, Jean Tardieu, Jacques Prévert, Michel Leiris, Philippe Jaccottet, Michel Butor, Yves Bonnefoy... The relationship between literature and painting is sometimes difficult to grasp, as the reference to a work may be implicit or clearly mentioned in the text. Through a stylistic approach to literary texts, it is sometimes possible to discover the link between text and image, by a writer with Georges de La Tour.

René Char discovered Georges de La Tour, during an exhibition organized at the Orangerie (Paris) from November 1934 to February 1935: it was entitled "Les Peintres de la Réalité en France au XVIIe siècle". He devoted various writings to the painter, a text on The Prisoner. René Char dialogues with the painting by involving it in the context of the Second World War: "Hitler's darkness". Another text of René Char, extracted again from Fureur et mystère, pays tribute to the Magdalene with the night-light. In The Lost Nude, Char writes a text entitled "Justesse de Georges de La Tour" and in which he alludes to various paintings of the painter such as The Cheater or The Old Man.

André Malraux published in 1951 Les Voix du silence, a set of different essays on art. He expresses his fascination for the work of Georges de La Tour, especially his mastery of lighting. Malraux talks about the details of La Tour's pictorial style: the line of a profile, the shapes or the lighting. He compares La Tour with other painters: Cézanne, Uccello, Giotto etc.

Pascal Quignard published an essay entitled Georges de La Tour in 1991. Pascal Quignard sees in the representations of the painter a mystical spirituality. Thus, he expresses that the flame in Georges de La Tour: "it is God". He speaks of "the meditative night of Georges de La Tour" in The Sexual Night. Quignard also writes: "a thought absorbs them" speaking about the figures painted by La Tour.

Charles Juliet wrote an article in Télérama in which he slipped into the shoes of Georges de La Tour. He chose to write his text in the first person singular. He focuses on the use of light in the works of Georges de La Tour and on the general themes that he gives it. Charles Juliet describes several paintings in fragments, isolating the most striking elements.

• Ainsi que l'indiquent son acte de baptême conservé au Musée départemental Georges de La Tour et son acte de mariage conservé aux Archives départementales de la Moselle.
• Alexandre Joly, architecte lorrain, retrouve la trace d'un certain Georges Du Ménil-La-Tour, peintre, et reconstitue quelques éléments de sa carrière dans une courte étude des archives locales, mais sans pouvoir y adjoindre le moindre tableau.
• J. Thuillier, Biographie et fortune critique [w:] Georges de La Tour: Orangerie des Tuileries 10 mai-25 septembre 1972, Paris 1972, s. 60.
• J. Thuillier, Biographie et fortune critique [w:] Georges de La Tour: Orangerie des Tuileries 10 mai-25 septembre 1972, Paris 1972, s. 61.
• K. Secomska, Malarstwo francuskie XVII wieku, Warszawa 1985, s. 32.
• P. Rosenberg, J. Thuillier, Catalogue [w:] Georges de La Tour: Orangerie des Tuileries 10 mai-25 septembre 1972, Paris 1972, s. 109-111.
• a b Rosenberg, Pierre: Ficha en la Enciclopedia online. Museo del Prado. Consultado el 6 de diciembre de 2015.
• Anthony Blunt, „Art and Architecture in France, 1500–1700”, 1953, Penguin

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