Not rediscovered until the twentieth century, the works of Georges de La Tour retain an aura of mystery. At first sight, his paintings suggest a veritable celebration of light and the visible world, but this is deceptive. The familiarity of visual experience blinds the beholder to a deeper understanding of the meanings associated with vision and the visible in the early modern period.
By exploring the representations of light, vision, and the visible in La Tour's works, this interdisciplinary study examines the nature of painting and its artistic, religious, and philosophical implications. In the wake of iconoclastic outbreaks and consequent Catholic call for the revitalization of religious imagery, La Tour paints familiar objects of visible reality that also serve as emblems of an invisible, spiritual reality. Like the books in his paintings, asking to be read, La Tour's paintings ask not just to be seen as visual depictions but to be deciphered as instruments of insight. In figuring faith as spiritual passion and illumination, La Tour's paintings test the bounds of the pictorial image, attempting to depict what painting cannot ultimately show: words, hearing, time, movement, changes of heart.
La Tour's emphasis on spiritual insight opens up broader artistic, philosophical, and conceptual reflections on the conditions of possibility of the pictorial medium. By scrutinizing what is seen and how, and by questioning the position of the beholder, his works revitalize critical discussion of the nature of painting and its engagements with the visible world.
- 192 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Georges de La Tour and the Enigma of the Visible
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Information
Publisher
Fordham University PressYear
2017Print ISBN
9780823277445
9780823277438
eBook ISBN
9780823277452
Topic
ArtSubtopic
History of Renaissance ArtTable of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. The Enigma of the Visible
- 2. Spiritual Passion and the Betrayal of Painting
- 3. The Visible and the Legible
- 4. Flea Catching and the Vanity of Painting
- 5. Painting as Portal: “Birth” and “Death” of the Sacred Image
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
- Color plates
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Yes, you can access Georges de La Tour and the Enigma of the Visible by Dalia Judovitz in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Art & History of Renaissance Art. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.