Natixis invites you to discover Georges de La Tour, a solitary painter whose work is hypnotising as much as it enigmatic.
His paintings once hung in the apartments of Louis XIII and were prized by the kingdom's highest dignitaries. Then they were dispersed, destroyed, and sometimes even wrongly attributed to other painters, including Vermeer and Velasquez - no doubt a testament to their exceptional quality. For almost 300 years, the name of Georges de La Tour disappeared from memory.
Yet, in the 1930s, patient work of experts led to the gradual rediscovery of his genius: a first exhibition at the Musée de l'Orangerie in 1934 brought together 13 paintings, and several poets - including René Char - expressed boundless admiration for him.
Fifty years later, it was his crowning achievement: an exhibition at the Grand Palais was dedicated to him in 1997. It attracted over half a million visitors, a record for an early painter.
Natixis invites you to discover Georges de La Tour, a solitary painter whose work is hypnotising as much as it enigmatic.
Georges de La Tour was born in Vic-sur-Seille, Lorraine, in 1593. He was the son of a wealthy baker. Nothing predestined him to be appointed "Peintre ordinaire du Roy" (Ordinary Painter to the King) by Louis XIII, but La Tour soon rose through the ranks. His marriage to Diane Le Nerf, from a wealthy noble family, assured him a place in the most prominent circles. His talent was recognised. The king, Richelieu, and his niece, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, the superintendent of finance Claude de Bullion, and even Le Nôtre all owned works signed by him.
His art seduced by its difference. In 1623, Henri II of Lorraine commissioned his first painting, followed by a second the following year. As the years went by, his reputation grew, and by 1640 he was living in the Louvre by royal invitation. La Tour had gone from being a provincial painter to a man of the court in Paris.
La Tour is first and foremost a light, whether from a candle, a lantern or a brazier; a flickering halo, as if weightless, casting enigmatic shadows on faces that are often impassive. His nocturnal canvases are bathed in a hushed gloom, from which emerge frozen gestures and silences in which the characters seem to be conversing.
He may not have invented chiaroscuro, but he made it his own. Early in his career, he was inspired by the painter Jacques Bellange. Highly esteemed by the dukes of Lorraine, Bellange organised sumptuous feasts in their palaces, and his paintings were all the rage: intricate details, emotions, and altered body proportions that seemed to stretch out unrealistically were the main characteristics.
Tastes gradually evolved in favor of the realism popularized by Caravaggio, whose emulators were numerous in Europe, and it is said that the Annunciation by the Italian painter was offered by the Duke of Lorraine to the primatial cathedral of Nancy: La Tour saw it and it changed his art. He would also have contemplated the Caravaggesque works of Nordic artists who had traveled to Rome. But La Tour absorbed and transcended all influences, whether Flemish or Spanish, to create his own style.
His daytime scenes feature thieves, cheats and beggars, often male, as well as fortune-tellers. The nocturnes, on the other hand, depict religious subjects without ostentation, and transform biblical scenes into universal meditations, moving away from the more brutal genre scenes of Caravaggio.
In The Newborn, two women wrap an infant in almost total darkness. The scene evokes the Nativity, or the fragile condition of all human life. If you look closely at Saint Sebastian being cared for by Irene, you think you can hear breathing and whispering. As the monk Dom Calmet recounts in one of his works, this painting was "of such perfect taste that the King had all the other paintings removed from his room, leaving only this one.
Over the course of his career, La Tour explored similar subjects several years apart. Though solitary, he was far from being an artist on the fringes. Genre scenes were very much in vogue, ensuring him a loyal clientele of religious and middle-class people. He began to teach painting to his son Étienne. Commissions were plentiful and income comfortable.
Then came oblivion. La Tour died in 1652, and his son, shortly after taking over his father’s work, gave up painting. His oeuvre was scattered and destroyed amid looting and wars. To make matters worse, many of his paintings were unsigned, leading to frequent misattributions. The New-born, now housed in Rennes, was long believed to be a Dutch painting.
It wasn't until the 19th century that a timid rediscovery of the artist began. In 1863, the first biographical study finally mentioned the painter from Lorraine. Then, in the 1920s, some of his paintings reappeared at auction, although they were often presented as avant-garde Dutch! It wasn't until the 1934-1935 exhibition that the attribution of his works progressed, until his complete rehabilitation in the 1970s.
Since then, the exhibitions—rare and exceptional—have attracted a fascinated audience, captivated by La Tour’s soft and haunting light. With each showing, something is revealed subtly, never fully explained. In 2021, the painting Saint André fetched nearly 5 million euros at a Christie’s auction, a testament to the fact that his long-forgotten work is now receiving worldwide recognition.
This success, however, does not dispel the shadows, as the mystery surrounding Georges de La Tour persists. He draws one in like an inhabited silence. Poets have made no mistake: René Char, among others, saw in his collected figures, his night watchmen, and his praying Magdalenes, the glimpses of an intimate truth. Exhibiting his works is to let this secret light converse with our modern gaze - and to allow ourselves to be subtly touched by the beauty of what slips away.
Image 1: The New Born, circa 1645
Image 2: Saint Philip, circa 1625 © Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr./Photo: Ed Pollard. Courtesy of the Chrysler Museum of Art
Image 3: The Dice Players, circa 1650-1651 © Preston Park Museum and Grounds -Photograph by Simon Hill / Scirebröc
Image 4: The Smoker, 1646 ©Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Image Archives/DNPartcom
Cover image: Georges de La Tour - The Newborn (c. 1645) - © Rennes, Musée des beaux-arts
