Georges de La Tour

📒 Georges de La Tour remained relatively unknown until the twentieth century, when it was realized that he was one of the greatest painters of candle-lit scenes who ever lived. Tantalizingly little is known about his life, most of which was spent in the small town of Luneville, a few miles from Nancy, the capital of the Duchy of Lorraine. Although La Tour's times were torn by war and pestilence, his art reflects little of this. At his greatest, he concentrated on simple, peaceful scenes, which achieve, through dramatic lighting effects, a monumental calm and simplicity. This book reproduces almost all La Tour's known surviving output - just under forty pictures - including some which have been recently cleaned. They range from the early peasant scenes of beggars brawling and courtesans cheating at cards to his mature work, which acts as a total contrast, in its measured simplicity, to the nervous style of his early years.