1593-1652 French Georges de La Tour Galleries His early work shows influences from Caravaggio, probably via his Dutch followers, and the genre scenes of cheats??as in The Fortune Teller ??and fighting beggars clearly derive from the Dutch Caravaggisti, and probably also his fellow-Lorrainer, Jacques Bellange. These are believed to date from relatively early in his career. La Tour is best known for the nocturnal light effects which he developed much further than his artistic predecessors had done, and transferred their use in the genre subjects in the paintings of the Dutch Caravaggisti to religious painting in his. Unlike Caravaggio his religious paintings lack dramatic effects. He painted these in a second phase of his style, perhaps beginning in the 1640s, using chiaroscuro, careful geometrical compositions, and very simplified painting of forms. His work moves during his career towards greater simplicity and stillness ?? taking from Caravaggio very different qualities than Jusepe de Ribera and his Tenebrist followers did. He often painted several variations on the same subjects, and his surviving output is relatively small. His son Etienne was his pupil, and distinguishing between their work in versions of La Tour's compositions is difficult. The version of the Education of the Virgin, in the Frick Collection in New York is an example, as the Museum itself admits. Another group of paintings (example left), of great skill but claimed to be different in style to those of de La Tour, have been attributed to an unknown "Hurdy-gurdy Master". All show older male figures (one group in Malibu includes a female), mostly solitary, either beggars or saints. After his death in 1652, La Tour's work was largely forgotten until rediscovered by Hermann Voss, a German scholar, in 1915. 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, and forgers tried to help meet the new demand; many aspects of his œuvre remain controversial among art historians.  Related Paintings of Georges de La Tour :. | The Fortune Teller | The Newborn Christ | Hurdy-Gurdy Player (mk08) | St Sebastian Attended by St Irene (mk08) | The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds |
Related Artists:
Tobias Verhaecht
(Antwerp, 1561 - 1631) was a painter and draughtsman active in Antwerp, Florence and Rome. Primarily a landscape painter, his style is indebted to mannerist world landscapes of artists like Joachim Patinir with high viewpoints, fantastic distant perspectives and three-colour scheme. Before Verhaecht entered Antwerp's guild of St. Luke in 1590-91, he had already spent time in Italy, first in Florence, and then as a fresco painter in Rome. Peter Paul Rubens, who was a relative by marriage, studied with him around 1592, and another student was his own son, Willem van Haecht. Verhaecht is also known for his designs for prints.
Pignoni, Simone
Italian, 1611-98 Italian painter and draughtsman. He is best known for his many pictures of voluptuous female nudes, which developed the morbidly sensual style of Francesco Furini. His Self-portrait (c. 1650; Florence, Uffizi), in which he depicts himself building up a rounded female form from a skeleton, conveys his fascination with the subject. He had an early education in Latin, followed by an apprenticeship in the workshop of the bookbinder Zanobi Pignoni, a close relative. Domenico Passignano, who frequented the workshop, suggested that Pignoni be apprenticed to Fabrizio Boschi (1570-1642), one of his own former pupils. Pignoni began to study under Boschi
Juan Rizi
was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period. He was born in Madrid in 1600. He was a brother of Francisco Rizi, and a pupil of Juan Bautista Mayno. In 1628 he entered the Benedictine Order, studied in Salamanca, and became Abbot of the Medina del Campo in Madrid (?). He painted several works for St. Juan Bautista in Burgos, St. Martin in Madrid, and Monte Cassino in Italy. In the Madrid Museum is a St. Francis of Assisi by him (?). He afterwards went to Rome, where he was made an Archbishop (?) by pope Clement X. He died at Monte Cassino in 1681.