Georges de La Tour and the Enigma of the Visible
eBook - ePub

Georges de La Tour and the Enigma of the Visible

  1. 192 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Georges de La Tour and the Enigma of the Visible

About this book

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.

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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 one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Illustrations
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Introduction
  9. 1. The Enigma of the Visible
  10. 2. Spiritual Passion and the Betrayal of Painting
  11. 3. The Visible and the Legible
  12. 4. Flea Catching and the Vanity of Painting
  13. 5. Painting as Portal: “Birth” and “Death” of the Sacred Image
  14. Epilogue
  15. Notes
  16. Selected Bibliography
  17. Index
  18. Color plates