Eye Candy for Today: La Tour’s Joseph

Joseph the Carpenter, Georges de La Tour

Joseph the Carpenter, Georges de La Tour; oil on canvas; roughly 54 x 40 in (137 x 101 cm) Link is to image page on Wikimedia Commons. Original is listed as being in the Louvre (though I can’t find it in a search of the Louvre’s online database).

17th century French painter Georges de La Tour was known for his scenes lit by candlelight, the source for which was sometimes open, and sometimes obscured by a hand or other object, as in this painting.

Given his overall tendency for naturalistic rendering and lighting, and the way he has presented candle flames in other paintings, I find his representation of the candle flame in this painting particularly odd. Perhaps, given that the candle is held by a young Jesus, it as some religious significance. I don’t know.

 
FacebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinFacebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedin

Carl Moll

Carl Moll
Carl Moll

Carl Moll was a Vienesse painter active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries whose work embodied influences from French Impressionism, Pointillism and Art Nouveau.

His catalogue of paintings that celebrate natural beauty and domesticity is somewhat tarnished by his political embrace of the early Nazi Party in Vienna.

 
FacebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinFacebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedin