Georges De La Tour (1593-1652) French Baroque Painter
While not every painting by La Tour has a single candle as its light source, a good number of his later works do. His paintings took on the quality of stillness. In The New Born Child , reference is made to Christ, the newborn King. The few figures within the painting seem to contemplate something that is bigger than them and do so with quiet reverence and awe. It could easily be any new born lying still in his mother’s arms and admired by an older adult. But even though the medieval tradition of surrounding the heads of holy people with halos was out of fashion, people understood this as a picture of the Holy family. La Tour made many religious paintings. He set religious scenes in contemporary times, using models and clothing them from his own period.
Georges De La Tour was the son of a baker, who later married a woman of nobility. He led the life of a local squire and painted. Most of his works were destroyed when his home was pillaged and burned during a war between France and Lorraine. Later he became “P ainter to the King” of Fra nce, Louis XIII. He worked for Dukes as well, but most of his paintings were sold to the local bourgeoisie. His paintings sold for large sums at that time. He is known for the way he used candlelight and candles within dark interiors in many of his paintings.
SHADING AN OBJECT
The value of an object is seen as darker when the object is in shadow. To darken a color is called shading. Shading is done by adding black to the original color. One can also shade by adding a color that is darker than the original color, the way red and blue shade the yellow apple below. Choose a small fruit or solid colored object and set it in the light so that you can see shading and shadow. Paint it.
SHADING AND SHADOW HAPPEN IN THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT.
SHADING IS SEEN ON THE OBJECT.
SHADOW IS CAST ONTO OTHER OBJECTS, SUCH AS THE TABLE.
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