La Tour: L'europa Della Luce

Exhibition at Palazzo Reale, Milan, 7 February - 7 June 2020

One of the most important interpreters of seventeenth-century painting, Georges de La Tour (1593-1652) became famous for the suggestive light effects of his candlelit scenes. The principle of light, understood as the unifying element of the composition, is indeed the characteristic feature of the art of the French painter, whose research has always been compared, in critical historiography and in the perception of the general public, to the art of Caravaggio, with whom Georges de La Tour also shares a predilection for humble subjects and imperfect bodies.

This catalogue, published on the occasion of an exhibition devoted to the Lorraine painter and his contemporary, offers a series of comparisons and reflections on painting from life and the experiments with light that accompanied its spread in Europe.