Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Plates bright and vivid. Dustcover has some wear and tear. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> Georges de La Tour (1593-1652) one of the most original and impressive French painters of his century lived and worked at Lun?ville in Lorraine. In a country ravaged by the plague and torn by the brutalities of the Thirty Years War he painted pictures of mysterious calm and monumentality some of them representing Biblical figures and Saints others genre scenes sharply observed and composed with an unerring eye for spatial balance and harmony. About 35 of his paintings are known to have survived; five of these are in the U.S.A. (New York San Francisco Cleveland and Malibu) two in England (Hampton Court and Middlesbrough) one in Stockholm one in Geneva one in Lvov and the rest in France. No full-scale study of La Tour has yet appeared in English. Much information has come to light since F.G. Pariset’s book was published over twenty-five years ago and much has been written on La Tour in the form of articles and short books since 1948. Two of his pictures have been rediscovered during the last three years (in Middlesbrough and Lvov) and an exhibition of his entire oeuvre held in Paris in 1972 has made him widely popular. The great value of this authoritative book lies in an attempt at a convincing chronology of the works and an interpretation of the artist’s elusive personality. The introductory text deals with his life and achievement and provides a sensitive analysis of his paintings. This is followed by a summary of contemporary documents and a full critical catalogue of 74 pictures half of them lost and known only from copies or documents. His complete surviving oeuvre is reproduced with many startling details of great appeal and beauty. In addition there are 130 comparative illustrations. (OS)