Georges de La Tour, 'The Newborn Child'
Listen to the Story: 9 minutes
Audio-only: (best on mobile)
Description:
We look at a Tenebrist Nativity painting by Georges de La Tour. La Tour’s work was stylistically similar to Caravaggio in both his treatment of subject and colour. There is however an introspective flavour to this particular nativity. It is both sombre (infant fragility) and enlightening (the light of Christ). De La Tour personally suffered from a history of family infant mortality and we can detect a guarded and introspective mood in his life subjects. As well as becoming the shrine of God, the Virgin Mary’s dramatic Christmas story is also one of fragility and selfless abandonment.
