Introduction
The history of world art is rich in names that stand to denote this or that period of art development. The current paper is concerned with exploration of the relationship between the two artists from different historical periods. Namely, it focuses on Georges de la Tour and Gino Severini. Through conducting biographical studies and exploration of the peculiarities of the artists’ styles we will consider similarities and differences between the two of them.
Main text
Starting with biographical studies of Georges de la Tour, we should say that he was born on March 13, 1593 in the town of Vic-upon-Seille, in the part of the independent Duchy of Lorraine. His Baptism documentation indicates that his father was a baker as well as all men in his generation. Georges was the second child in the La Tour family. The children were brought up in the surroundings of prosperous artisans. There are no credible sources of information concerning la Tour’s years of youth and education. But some suggestions still exist. Some assume that the would-be painter spent his youth in Vic, where the Swiss painter Claude Dogoz lived, others suggest that la Tour lived at Nance, at the studio of Jacques Bellange (Olga’s Gallery).
At the age of twenty-four Georges married Diane le Nerf (born in 1591 to an ennobled family). The couple settled in the parental house in Vic. Georges, Diane had ten children, the first of which was born in 1619 (son Philipp). When la Tour signed his marriage contract, he wrote of himself as a painter thus making the first step into the world of art. After the birth of their first child the couple moved to Luneville, fifteen miles south of Vic.
In 1620 La Tour apprenticed to Claude Baccarat. In 1621-1623 the Duke bought a painting by the artist, and another one in 1624 (Olga’s gallery). In 1631, the war touched the family and la Tour became a guardian for his nephews whose father died in the war. When the war ended the painter vowed to Louis XIII. In the document signifying his vow of loyalty he is referred to as “the noble George de la Tour” (Olga’s gallery).
Since 1636 the artist had his own apprentices. That was the year of plague and la Tour’s work St. Sebastian Attended by St. Irene was a saint the prayers came to in search of protection against the plague. In 1638, Luneville was burnt, La Tour’s house and the studio with all his works were ruined by fire. Nancy became the next home for the family.
Soon, King Louis XIII and the Duke de la Ferte were among the collectors of his work. In 1639 la Tour was given the title Painter to the King.
La Tour, being in the state of deep depression, died on January 30, 1652 soon after the death of his wife.
Though his contemporaries considered him to be “a basically unpleasant person – haughty, sharp-tongued, self-assured, unbearably self-sufficient, stingy, and violent beyond measure” (Georges La Tour) such personality traits did not prevent him from becoming an extremely successful artist of his time. Still, we should admit that after la Tour’s death most of his works were forgotten. It was the German art historian Hermann Voss who rediscovered the genius of the great artist in 1915.
As far as the uniqueness of the style of Georges de la Tour is concerned, it consists in the way he looked at realistic works of art. Furness (1949) claimed that.
Georges de la Tour is classed as a realist. Realist he is in that his subjects, predominantly if not exclusively religious, are represented in terms of “real” life, often the life of his own country-town and surroundings in Lorraine. But he avoided naturalism; rather, he chose to simplify, modeling his forms by marked contrasts of light and shade, and using large volumes and severe lines, with great selective economy of detail (70).
The painter’s style was unique in terms of depiction of common subjects, the design and composition of the works. Georges de la Tour may be considered a mysterious painter: his characters exude an aura of mystery and this mystery is emphasized by the hidden light source common for his works.
The nocturnal light effects the painter is best known for originating from Caravaggio’s technique. But Georges de la Tour developed the technique and applied it to his religious paintings. La Tour’s paintings are lit with a candle, a nightlight, or a torch. There are also daylight scenes depicted in the painter’s works. The figures on such paintings are rendered in the smallest detail and a simplicity that makes the painter’s style unique.
Simplicity of forms and strictly geometrical compositions and simplicity of forms are typical for chiaroscuro technique. It should be noted, that during his whole career la Tour moved in the direction of great simplicity and stillness in his works. As for the geometric-based compositions, la Tour’s St. Sebastian Attended by St. Irene is the perfect example of this technique, as here a diagonal runs from the head of the recumbent Sebastian through the kneeling figure of Irene and her standing attendants. The martyr’s body makes an acute angle with this diagonal, both lines being set against the verticals of a tree and of the standing figures with their emphatically straight drapery folds: the effect is reminiscent of Cubism (Georges de la Tour 2003).
Tenebristic techniques that the painter uses in his works also empower one to call him a follower of Caravaggio. Actually, this is a heightened form of chiaroscuro we spoke of above. The technique is based on creation of violent contrasts of light and dark so that the figures give an impression of emerging from the dark.
One more characteristic of la Tour’s works is his close attention to mood. Each painting of the artist, no matter whether a night or a daily scene is depicted there, has a meditative quality about it. The painting does not make the viewer decipher what he or she looks at, instead, the painter encourages one to concentrate on the feelings that this or that work evokes with the viewer. This effect is achieved due to the absence of any background in the scenes:
La Tour’s sparsely populated pictures almost always represent scenes that take place nowhere, if they are judged by the almost complete absence of scenery. The boundaries of the settings are, nevertheless, delineated. There appear to be walls, but they have no texture and the color is not descriptive (Georges de la Tour 2003).
If we consider the most common subjects of la Tour’s works we will see that hurdy-gurdy players were commonly depicted by him. The artist has depicted four life-size and full-length players of this medieval stringed instrument, but the version that is currently in Nantes is considered to be the masterpiece (Olga’s gallery). His Card-Sharp with the Ace of Clubs depicts a secular and moralizing scene from modern life, The Penitent Magdalene depicts the moments before Magdalene’s conversion. The Newborn depicts the two female figures with a swaddled child and is often regarded as the finest example of the artist’s style and abilities.
The fascination with themes and techniques brought la Tour great success in his days. However, as it has already been mentioned, he was completely forgotten after his death and his artistic genius was rediscovered in our time only. Still, we believe that his incredible view of realism and his preoccupation with the use of light makes his fame unfading and will continue to touch the viewers’ hearts for hundreds of years to come.
As far as biographical study of Gino Severini is concerned, he was born April 7, 1883, in Cortona, Italy. In 1899, he moved to Rome, before, he studied at the Scuola Tecnica in Cortona. In Rome he became a student of art classes. In 1991 he met Umberto Boccioni, who later became one of the theoreticians of Futurism. Severini and Boccioni became common visitors of Giacorno Barilla’s studio. There they learned the techniques of painting with “divided” color as opposed to the mixed color. In November 1906, Severini moved to Paris where he studied Impressionist painting and was introduced to the Neo-Impressionist Paul Signac.
In the capital of France Severini was commonly seen among the representatives of the Parisian avant-garde (Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso). Also, he came to know French authors like Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Fort, Max Jacob, and Jules Romains.
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Boccioni invited Severini to join the Futurist movement. In April 1910, Balla, Boccioni, Carlo Carra, Luigi Russolo and Severini signed the Manifesto Tecnico Della Pittura Futurista. In this way Severini became the co-founder of the Futurism style. However, in contrast to his artist colleagues he was less interested in the dynamic of machines, instead, he depicted human bodies in motion. He frequently resorted to depiction of dancers to demonstrate the Futurist theories of dynamism in art. In 1912 Severini helped organize the first Futurist exhibition in Paris and organized exhibitions of his works in Paris, London, and Berlin.
It is important to admit that during the Futurist period Severini played an important role in uniting the artists in France and Italy. A series of his paintings on war themes can be considered as the last stage in his painting in Futurist works. After 1920 he began working in a Synthetic Cubist mode. He started to learn various fresco and mosaic techniques. In the 1950s Severini returned to the Futurism style in painting: dancers, light, and movement again became the leading themes of his works. He died on February 26, 1966, in his Parisian home. On April 15, 1996 his body was brought back to his native Cortona.
The first technique that the artist resorted to was the pointillist technique that meant applying dots of contrasting colors according to principles of optical science. This approach dominated his works until 1910 when Severini signed the Futurist manifesto. We have already admitted that Severini did not share the Futurist colleagues’ interest in painting moving cars or machines; instead, he focused on his characters as the source of energetic motion in his works. Nightclubs scenes were the favorite subjects of the artist’s paintings. The latter rendered the sensations of movement, by depicting rhythmic forms and flickering sounds. The Dynamic Hieroglyph of the Bal Tabarin symbolizes the artist’s resorting to Cubist technique, namely, this was the technique of collage. The artist depicted the real sequins fixed to the dancers’ dresses.
Since 1916 Severini started to bring geometric order to paintings. The Synthetic Cubist manner is typical for Severini’s works of this period. Starting from this time the artist also incorporated the Neoclassical figurative style which he developed more fully in the 1920s.
When Severini moved closer to the Cubist style his surfaces became severer and cleaner, the greys and browns alternated with a balance that was far indeed from any form of rhetoric. Geometry and a stern mathematical relationship of forms distinguish his compositions from those of other Cubists (Ballo 30).
In the 1950s, he returned to the non-figurative idiom. His Rythme d’une Danseuse au Tutu Violet links his works of this period with his first avant-garde works. The subjects of his Futurist years, such as dancers, light, and movement become predominant in his paintings of the 1950s.
Summary
Thus, we can see that the two artists lived and created in different historical periods. The biographical facts influenced their career development. The techniques the artists used differ which can probably be explained by the different trends prevailing in the two periods described. Still, the peculiarities of the artists’ use of existing techniques made their styles unique and made their works unfading, even taking into account the fact that la Tour’s works were forgotten soon after his death. We believe that the two artists can fairly be called mysterious and this is in this mystery where the secret of their works is rooted.
Works Cited
“Georges de la Tour.” The Grove Dictionary of Art Online. 2003. Web.
Ballo, Guido. Modern Italian Painting: From Futurism to the Present Day. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1958.
“Georges de la Tour.” Web.
“Olga’s Gallery 2003.” Web.
Furness, S.M.M. Georges de la Tour of Lorraine: 1593-1652. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1949.