On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Robert A. Baron wrote:

> At 05:53 PM 10/24/96 -0400, Hank wrote:
>
> >     The Washington Post gave it mixed reviews. Paul Richard in Style gave
> >it a rave. In the Weekend section (tomorrow), I describe it as a
> >well-mounted retrospective of an artist who started strong but finished
> >rather weakly because of his excessive infatuation with Caravaggio.
> >
> >    It's a fascinating show, and besides, any excuse for visiting the
> >National Gallery is a good one.
>
> Hank, come on!  Sure La Tour is classified as a northern Carravigist
> painter, but to say that he suffers from an infatuation with Caravaggio
> seems to ignore the vast difference in style and purpose between the two.
> It is not even clear that he saw any Caravaggios.  If there is an
> infatuation, it is with an idea, not an image, this is the idea that light
> and the absence thereof can be used to compose a painting.  But whereas
> Caravaggio uses light to bring out the dynamics of human action and emotion,
> La Tour uses light to model structure, underline stasis, express calm and
> promote medidation.  Indeed, the penchant for interior scenes lit with a
> single source of light, quite common among the northern Caravaggisti, has no
> counterpart among the works of the Italian master.  If the privately
> commissioned works (and some public ones) by Caravaggio contain hidden or
> emblematic meanings that cater to the sophisticated homoerotic tastes of his
> patrons, La Tour has none of that.  Instead, as, for example in the Berlin
> St. Sebastian, the full force of developed counter-reformation stylistic
> idiology has come into play.  The event from Saint Sebastian's life that is
> portrayed, is the moment when he is taken down from the tree and tended to
> by the nurse Irene. (?) La Tour poses it to make it consonant with and evoke
> images of the life of Christ, here, the deposition.

  Yes, yes, yes and yes. But the St. Sebastian, like many of La Tour's
mature works, looks like a painting of a wood carving.

> La Tour may not be the
> great master that Caravaggio was, but to pit one against the other forces
> observers to misconstrue, I think, their separate and unique messages.

  It is not I but the National Gallery of Art (and the Kimbell) who have
pitted them mano a mano. It's my belief that La Tour might have become a
master of the first rank had he not been infected with tenebrism.

> I, for one, intend to see this show.

  If you think I was trying to warn patrons away, you misread me. It's a
terrific show.

  Do you know the dates?  Will it be in
> D.C. over Xmas?

  It runs through January 5, then moves to the Kimbell (Fort Worth)
February 2 - May 10.

     Hank Burchard * <[log in to unmask]> * Washington DC | USA