Georges de la Tour 🕯️ From Shadow to Light

 

For some reason I feel audacious after visiting museum shows and try to paint 🎨 like the painter…

17th century master painter George de la Tour (1593 -1652) just opened at musée Jacquemart-Andre.last Thursday.

My watercolor candle 🕯️ above is taken from this painting of Mary Magdalen.

Candle light 🕯️is a recurring theme 

In de la Tour’s 

Dramatic, mysterious 

Nocturnal scenes.

You can pick up a candle 🕯️ in the museum gift shop and set up your own de la Tour scene 👍

I captured 📸 a visitor unknowingly creating his own scene onsight.

With strong silhouetted shapes. 

The contrast of light and shade is crystal clear in this religious painting, The Newborn Child ( 1647-1648).

It’s fun to make a pencil ✏️ sketch analyzing the repeated geometric forms, here mostly triangles, in this exquisitely simple, yet perfect composition.

I did not sketch ✍️ on the spot. It was crowded opening day.

I did not watch the introductory film 🎥 but headed straight inside to the exhibit. You can always watch it after you exit. 

I did NOT get the audio phones that come with your ticket. People stand in front of paintings in a trance-like state and don’t actually look 👁️ at the artwork 🖼️ 😬

Instead watch the many art videos on YouTube BEFORE you go. I liked this one. You should  reserve your ticket ahead, though I did see some people buying them last minute.

I haven’t told you a thing ABOUT Georges de la Tour. He lived mostly in Luneville near Nancy in the Duchy of Lorraine, which became part of France during his lifetime. He was painter to Louis XIII. De la Tour often did not sign his paintings, though he was renowned in his time, so they fell into obscurity after his death during a pandemic in 1652.

The Fortune Teller - New York Metropolitan 

There are only 40 known de la Tour paintings and musée Jacquemart-Andre is showing 30 in this first retrospective since 1979 so it is quite a rare occasion. ‘The Fortune Teller’ above 👆 in the NYC Metropolitan Museum is too fragile to travel. 

The exhibit is on until 25 January, 2026.

There was quite a line for the museum’s

On Etsy
Much-adored tea salon and I was headed over to le Village International de la Gastronomie at Eiffel Tower.

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