Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 9 Number 3, December 2008

___________________________________________________________________

Georges de la Tour and the Significance of Light

by

Jane Duran

University of California at Santa Barbara

            Georges de la Tour is perhaps best known for his series of Madeleines, each of which seems to capture some aspect of the human condition in a way such that it remains in the viewer's imagination long after viewing.  The painting referred to as The Penitent Magdalene by many,  in particular, is a favorite of book cover designers and others, and has been reproduced so frequently that we immediately recognize it without, in many instances, being able to place it.1

            But part of what gives the portraits of this seventeenth-century French artist their remarkable power is their attention to light, and the significance of the details with respect to the placement of the light, what it illuminates, and so forth, can scarcely be overlooked.  His use of candles is remarkable, and although we are familiar with their positioning in many Renaissance and Baroque works, de la Tour brings their importance as a central feature of the painterly mode to new heights.  With today’s emphasis on naturalization, it is now possible to be much more specific about areas of consciousness and their modes of impact with respect to the visual than it has been in the past.  It will be the purpose of this paper to provide an aesthetic analysis of Georges de la Tour's use of light, and its interplay with other elements.

I

           In the tradition of Caravaggio and many other artists of the late Renaissance whose work might verge on the mannerist, de la Tour catches us with startling facial expressions, alluded to interiors, and psychological manifestations that take the viewer by surprise.  A moment of insight seems captured on canvas, and we, as the audience, are let in on the secret of the subject's inner life.  This is such a remarkable feature of his work that almost all commentators mention it from the outset in an analysis of the twentieth century popularity of this once somewhat-overlooked artist.  Pierre Rosenberg and Thierry Bajou, both commenting in a small French art publication from Editions Fernand Hazan, are struck by the seeming secretiveness of the Madeleine, for example, and our sudden awareness at what we have barely glimpsed.2  With respect to the aims de la Tour demonstrably had, Rosenberg notes that "His world, silent and grave, takes one's breath away..."3 

            Bajou, in commenting on the effect that the best known of the  popular Madeleine's has on the viewer, adds that the Madeleine is looking into a "[M]irror...which reflects a candle flame that leads one to reflect on the fragility of things and their ephemeral quality."4  Everything about a great many of the figures in de la Tour's chief works suggests moments of inspiration, redemption and conversion, yet a great deal of what is suggested is the result not only of sophisticated delineation of facial expressions but of the use of light.

II

            In each of the Madeleine paintings part of the effect on the viewer is achieved by creating a sense that the viewer is let in on a secret, and is seeing something that others might not be able to see.  This effect is created partly, of course, by the expression on the face of the Madeleine, one that seems to combine reflectivity, sorrow and resignation all at once.5  But a more important component, and one that can easily be set aside and examined separately, so to speak, is the play of light on the face of the Madeleine, and the intersection of that play with facial expression so as to create a sort of redoubled poignancy. 

            In the version titled Madeleine au miroir by Bajou, the Madeleine sits looking pensively in a mirror that shows the reflection of a skull (although, oddly, the skull is improperly positioned).  Everything except her face, the sleeve of her garment and the reflection is somewhat or completely shadowed, which, of course, draws us immediately to her facial expression.  A sort of pondering thoughtfulness--with perhaps a hint of surprise--seems to have overtaken her, and we are supposed to then look at the reflection of the skull in the mirror.  The viewer is left with the sensation that the Madeleine has just discovered the secret of mortality, so to speak, and that she has just realized that this applies to her life, too.  (It seems to be this version that, when popularly reproduced, is most often called The Penitent Madeleine.)  The light on her sleeve seems to cast an almost reflective glow on her face, and by the same token portions of the top of the skull are highlighted.  Perhaps the viewer is being let in on two secrets:  the secret of her/his mortality, as well as the Madeleine's discovery of the secret.  This, perhaps, explains the popularity and the force of this series of paintings.  We are not frequently confronted by skulls, and mortality is a topic we often attempt to avoid.  The Madeleine series will not allow us to do that.  The focus of the light on the Madeleine's facial expression no doubt reminds us of our own, under what might be similar or comparable circumstances.

            Fortunately, we now have a great deal of work in aesthetics involving cognition, sensory modalities, and an overall attempt to get at the aesthetic experience.  It is not only the case that de la Tour achieved something for the viewer—it is also the case that he achieved something himself, intellectually.  Robert Sowers, in his Rethinking the Forms of Visual Expression, has done a great deal to help us out with the ways in which our consciousness of aesthetic properties is altered by visual modalities.6  His concept is that various modalities are involved in the visual that, in toto, are the analogs of a color wheel. He wants us to think in terms of shifts that might move from the painterly to the sculptural; as de la Tour has taught us, the play of light may make a scene more or less sculptural in the way in which it strikes the viewer, even if we are still dealing with a flat canvas.

            The importance of discoveries with respect to optics, perspective and so forth during the Renaissance might make for a simplistic explanation as to why it is that paintings from the late Renaissance period so often strike us with respect to these qualities, but it does little to explain the emotional impact of such works.  Here, again, we may need newer work.  Other painters (as has been said here, Caravaggio is one) used some of the same techniques employed by de la Tour, but not perhaps to the same effect.  This is no doubt at least in part because, with de la Tour's work, the intense focus of light not only brings to our attention nuances of expression and gesture, but, as we have seen, metaphor and symbol as well.   A skull alone is a common enough symbol; the combination of skull and mirror (or, in some of the other works, candle and mirror) is more potent.  The mirror serves to underline the eternal, recycling nature of the changes leading to mortality, and their inevitability.  Flames, in their transience, also highlight mortality in a similar sort of way.  When the artist chooses to use the play of light in such a way as to accentuate gestures of awe and final understanding at the same time that these potent symbolic elements are highlighted, the effect is profound indeed.

That the works of de la Tour often succeed in achieving a pronouned effect can be attested to not only by their elevated popularity during a century rife with psychologizing and inner turmoil, but by their frequent use as illustrations.  The Madeleines seem to illustrate something about the human condition, and as time passes their import becomes more apparent.

III

             Still another artist whose use of light frequently elicits commentary is Correggio, although he predates de la Tour by approximately a century.  His "Adoration of the Christ Child," is also an often-reproduced piece, seen on Christmas cards and devotional material alike.  As Filippo Rossi says in his remarks on this painting in a volume originally published as part of a series on the great museums for Abrams,

                        The light which emanates from the Christ Child

            is the principal element of the picture.  It bathes the

            figure of the Virgin, making her dress stand out sharply

            against the ruined temple before a luminous landscape.

            The profound expression of motherhood, vividly con-

            veyed in the attitude of the Virgin, is a major reason

            for the great popularity of the painting.7

            Yet although the play of light here might superficially be compared to that in the Madeleine series, one major difference is the use to which the light is put.  A soft glow, seeming to effuse from the Child, envelops the Virgin and her robe in "The Adoration," but the glow does not alarm us.  Although the effect may not seem entirely natural, it is a great deal more natural (and hence less striking) than the light de la Tour uses in most of his work.  That light is at once more intense and also more revealing.  There is nothing unusual or particularly suggestive in the face of the Virgin in the Correggio work, other than what might be considered a sort of inspired motherliness.  But the expressions on the faces of the various Madeleines in de la Tour's work have a pensive, hidden quality that, combined with the intense light, are profoundly revelatory.  It is as if some secret were being conveyed, and we all of a sudden were placed as witnesses to it.  Thus the first effect of viewing, for example, the Madeleine au miroir is surprise.   As indicated earlier, one senses both that the figure in the painting has had an epiphanic moment, and that the viewer is having one at the same time.

            Along with the use of strategically-placed light in the paintings of the late Renaissance, we can also discern a much greater awareness of perspective and shading.  Chiaroscuro comes to the fore because of the advances in mathematical perspective mentioned earlier that allowed, simultaneously, for the development of optics and other sorts of moves in the sciences.  We would not ordinarily associate Descartes, for example, with work in the visual arts, but it is no accident that his work on optics comes at roughly the same time as a number of other moves in the visual arts that seem to display, in one way or another, similar kinds of concerns. 

            A concern for how the scene looks to the viewer in terms of realistic perspective is also a concern for psychological perspective.  As those who have maintained that one of the hallmarks of the Renaissance is the belief that "man is the measure of all things" pervades new developments in the humanities and the arts would no doubt contend, concern for the psychological cannot be maintained without an awareness of the individual, as opposed to the group.  The point is that Georges de la Tour's work manifests all of these developments and tendencies--we become involved psychologically because of the use of space and light.  With the Madeleine series, we are more than merely viewers.  We, too, experience the transience of life and the awareness of mortality that marks these works.  Such concerns could scarcely have been expressed as strongly in preceding societies, with their comparative lack of awareness of the strength of the individual personality.

IV

            Still another important aspect of the use of light in de la Tour is the emphasis on the candle, the flame, and its attenuation.  Although these might seem to be small points, it is clear, as was remarked upon by Bajou, that much of what strikes us in the paintings comes not only from the force of the light but from the quality of it.8 Now that we know more about the ways in which visual modalities strike us, as Sowers has indicated, we may be in a better position to articulate the three-dimensional force of the light as depicted.

            In de la Tour's work, the candle is not merely shown, as may very well be the case in the works of many of the Dutch masters.  Rather, the candle, its flame, and the force of the ambient light impose themselves upon the viewer in such a way that the flame seems to take on a power all its own.  In the Madeleine au miroir, for example, the top of the flame of the candle is shown just above a portion of the skull (the rest of the candle being obscured).  The wispiness of the flame highlights and accentuates the broad mass of the skull--in a stroke of visual genius, these two incompatible items, disparate both symbolically and in terms of their materiality, are juxtaposed in such a way that the viewer is forced to notice them.   In the Madeleine aux deux flammes the top of the candle's flame peeks just above the top of the mirror, but in the reflection of the candle as it is shown in the mirror, the flame is just below the gilt edge.  Once again our attention is drawn to the flame and its very carefully delineated edges.  This combined with the emphasis on the mirror's ornamentation and the turned and largely hidden profile of the Madeleine (in this case we have to guess what she is thinking) create a powerful and unforgettable atmosphere.

            It is also the case that these paintings gain a great deal from being "nocturnes," as the critics phrase them.  Because we associate night with the realm of the hidden, the painter's foray into this time of day accentuates everything else that might be brought to bear in the work.  Rosenberg notes that the day paintings gained popularity only after the nocturnes; presumably, some of the power of suggestiveness of the night paintings is lost.9 What all of this meant for de la Tour himself is difficult to say, given the paucity of facts that we have about his life and work.10 But it is probably not going too far to hazard a guess that the artist found the same solace in the composition of the works that we find in viewing them.  As Rosenberg remarks:

                        Le Tour se réfugie-t-il dans les nocturnes pour

            fuir ce monde qui l'inquiete?... [E]t si parfois une

            note de mystere et de reve...leur donne une dimension

            supplémentaire, c'est un sentiment de gravité dans

            l'isolement de la nuit qui les domine.

                        [Did La Tour take refuge in his nocturnal work

            to flee from this troubling world?  (In them) there

            is also a hint of mystery and of dreams--it gives

            them another dimension, a hint of gravity in the

            isolation of the night.]11

            We, too, as viewers are swept up in the nocturnal world of secrets created for us by de la Tour, a world that tells us about life and death and the shuffling off of the mortal coil.  In any case, although we probably cannot know what motivated the paintings, in a sense we do not need to know.  The canvases themselves are evidence enough.

V

             Throughout this paper I have argued that de la Tour's use of light, his psychologizing, his strategic employment of light symbols and his general air of nocturnal pondering yield, particularly in the popular Madeleine series, works of a disturbing and unique character.  As indicated earlier, the critics note that his work was undervalued for a long while, and that only from the time of the l'Orangérie exhibition in Paris in 1934 have his works achieved anything like the attention they deserved.12

            In more recent times, a reproduction of one of the Madeleine series graces the cover of one of Thomas Nagel's collections of essays.  It is perhaps appropriate that this particular piece was chosen to accompany a selection of pieces on questions of life and death.  There are few works of art available to us that provoke such thinking to a greater degree than the works of Georges de la Tour.