The Musée Jacquemart-André presents the first major retrospective in France dedicated to Georges de La Tour since 1997, an event of exceptional significance that brings to light the mystery and modernity of one of the most singular painters of the European seventeenth century. With a selection of more than thirty works, the exhibition Entre ombre et lumière retraces the entire career of the Lorraine-born artist, rediscovered only in the twentieth century and now regarded as one of the greatest French masters of the Grand Siècle. Trained in the still-independent Duchy of Lorraine, Georges de La Tour quickly rose to prominence thanks to the support of local dukes, Cardinal Richelieu, and even King Louis XIII, who named him "peintre ordinaire du roi". Yet after his death in 1652, his work fell into oblivion. It was only in the early twentieth century that art historians began to reconstruct his oeuvre, now consisting of around forty authenticated paintings, scattered across public and private collections worldwide. The Jacquemart-André exhibition offers a thematic reading of his work, structured around his major subjects: penitent saints, portraits of beggars and musicians, and nocturnal scenes lit by the faint glow of a candle. It is precisely in this light, both natural and mystical, that the deepest originality of La Tour’s painting reveals itself: a meditative, essential style, imbued with spirituality and nourished by Caravaggism, yet never slavishly imitative. Among the masterpieces on view are Le Nouveau-Né from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, a powerful, silent icon of motherhood and redemption, and La Madeleine pénitente from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, a masterful example of his ability to evoke mystical tension through just a few objects - an invisible candle, a skull, a mirror. In works such as Job raillé par sa femme and Les Larmes de saint Pierre, the artist transforms biblical narrative into intimate scenes, laden with restrained, deeply human pathos. The exhibition also features rare early works, paintings from his studio, and multiple versions of the same subject, such as the two Saint Jérôme pénitent canvases from Grenoble and Stockholm which allow for an exploration of his replication practice and the role of his workshop. The final gallery is devoted to his late years: sparse, radical works in which narrative dissolves into pure light, as in Souffleur à la pipe or Fillette au brasero, celebrating the ephemeral through the most lyrical and suspended chiaroscuro.
