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 | Bubender Hl. Hieronymus | Dice players | The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds | The Education of the Virgin |
Related Artists:
Callisto Piazza
(1500-1561) was an Italian painter. Callisto, a member of the Piazza family of painters, was born in Lodi, Lombardy. In 1523 he was working in Brescia. His first dated and signed work is from the following year, and shows a typical Brescian style. This style was then emerging, and included artists such as Romanino and Moretto. Piazza shows influences from contemporaries such as Dosso Dossi and Ludovico Mazzolino of the Ferrarese school, as well as Giovanni Agostino da Lodi. In 1526-1529 Piazza worked in Val Camonica, at Erbanno, Borno, Breno, Esine and Cividate Camuno. In 1529 he returned to his native Lodi where he formed a workshop with his brothers Cesare and Scipione (died 1552). In 1538, while in Crema, he married the noblewoman Francesca Confalonieri. Later Callisto moved to Milan, where he received numerous commissions, such as the decoration of the San Girolamo chapel in Santa Maria Presso San Celso (1542); the decoration of the refectory of the convent of Sant'Ambrogio (1545); the frescoes for the Saletta Negra in the Castello Sforzesco; and the decoration of the Simonetta chapel in San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore (1555), largely executed with the assistance of his son Fulvio. He also worked in Lodi at the Incoronata (1454), Novara, at the Abbey of Chiaravalle and other areas of Lombardy.
WILLEBEECK, Petrus
Flemish painter, Antwerp school (active 1632-1646 in Antwerp)
Carnicero, Antonio
Spanish, approx. 1748-1814 Painter and draughtsman, son of Alejandro Carnicero. He arrived at the Court in Madrid with his father in 1749 and took part in the competitions held by the Real Academia de S Fernando, winning second prize in 1769 with the Coronation of Alfonso XI and Queen Mary in the Monastery of Huelgas de Burgos (Madrid, Real Acad. S Fernando, Mus.). In 1760 he won a scholarship to Rome, subsequently winning prizes from the Accademia di S Luca. On his return to Madrid in 1766 he worked as a portrait painter, producing works such as the portrait of Do?a Tomasa de Aliaga, Widow of Salcedo (Madrid, Prado). In 1788 he was elected an honorary member of S Fernando. Under the protection of the Spanish prime minister, Manuel Godoy, Prencipe de la Paz, whom he painted on several occasions , and after painting the portraits of Charles IV and Maria Luisa (both Madrid, Monasterio de la Encarnacien), he was appointed Pintor de Cemara in 1796. In 1798 he applied unsuccessfully for the post of drawing-master to the Prince of Asturias, the future Ferdinand VII, although by 1806 he was teacher of the Infante Princes. He was a refined draughtsman and prepared illustrations for the editions of Cervantes's El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha published by the Real Academia Espa?ola (Madrid, 1780; 1782). He also made the drawings for the handsome engravings (Madrid, Calcografra N.) of the Real Picadero (Royal Riding School). In addition to his portraiture, which displays a talent for realism and wit, although at times combined with slightly garish colours, Carnicero executed attractive and descriptive costumbrista paintings, depicting everyday life, popular gatherings and hunting scenes, for instance Duck Shooting on the Albufera, Valencia