At 08:06 AM 10/25/96 -0400, Hank wrote:

>  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'm sure that no one, including Hank, sincerely believes that the Berlin St.
Sebastian is derived from a wood carving.  Yet, the observation has
substance; the work certainly has a wooden quality.  Saying that a work is
"infected" with tenebrism is like saying that Motherwell is "infected" with
abstract expressionism or Picasso with Cubism.  These styles and techniques
are means to an end.  In the end the "infection" of tenebrism may have
served as an effective palliative to the infected in plague-stricken
Lorraine where La Tour worked.



==================================
Robert A. Baron
Museum Computer Consultant
P.O. Box 93, Larchmont, NY  10538
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