Georges of the Tower

Georges of the Tower , born the March 14th 1593 with Vic-on-Pail (current department of the the Moselle) and dead the January 30th 1652 with Lunéville (current Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle), is a Lorraine painter .

Artist with the confluence of the cultures Scandinavian, Italian and French, contemporary of Jacques Stone-block and the brothers the Dwarf, the Tower is a penetrating observer of daily reality. With its taste pronounced for the naturalism and the attentive care that it carries to the play of the shade and the light, it is one of the most original continuators of the Caravagisme started by Caravage.

Biography

The baptismal certificate of Georges of the Tower, preciously preserved at the town hall of Vic-on-Pail, teaches us that he is the son of Jean of the Tower, baker. It is the second of a family of seven children. The July 2nd 1617, it marries Diane the Nerve and leaves to settle with Lunéville, where it starts to be made known, under the reign of Henri II of Lorraine, admiror of the Caravage.

Its course, and particularly its initial training, remain ignored then enough. It probably does not remain in Lorraine and travels to Paris since in 1639 it receives there the title of ordinary painter of the king . Undoubtedly he also lived with Rome where he discovered the work of Caravage.

Work

Curiously, famous at its time, Georges of the Tower sinks then in the lapse of memory. Its works are dispersed and allotted to other painters. It is redécouvert only in 1915 by the historian Hermann Voss who allots two fabrics of the to him Musée of the Art schools of Nantes. An exposure “the Painters of Reality in France at the XVIIe century”, organized with the Museum of the Orangery of November 1934 to February 1935, makes it possible the public to discover it. It is the first time that thirteen of the fifteen tables then allotted to the artist are joined together and it is a revelation.

Its work is characterized by a technique of the Clearly-obscure characteristic, which often allows, even with the neophytes, to recognize from the start a table as being a Georges of the Tower (or taking as a starting point its school). Its tables frequently put in scene interiors of night, where the characters are lit by the bright light of a candle.

the Lorraine Musée of Nancy contains in its gallery of the Stags of many fabrics allotted to Georges of the Tower.
the departmental Musée Georges-of-The-Turn with Vic-on-Pail also shelters a collection of paintings around theobscure one of the painter and the influences.
Job scoffed by his wife is preserved at the departmental Musée of old and contemporary art of Épinal.

Gallery

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