Top, detail.
Education of the Virgin (L’Apparition de la Vierge), c.1640. Georges de la Tour (1593-1652). Oil on canvas.
Georges de La Tour was a French Baroque painter, who spent most of his working life in the Duchy of Lorraine, which was temporarily absorbed into France between 1641 and 1648. He painted mostly religious chiaroscuro scenes lit by candlelight.
Chiaroscuro in art is “an Italian term which literally means ‘light-dark’. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted”.
