Georges de La Tour

Georges de La Tour  "The Penitent Magdalen"  

I've been taking a continuing ed class for fun at NYU called "Signs and Symbols: Reading Art."  Most of the lectures have been a good review from my undergrad art history classes, but my favorite sessions have been when we've gone to one of the most special places on earth, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

It feels as though I've been there hundreds of times since I was a child, yet still it never fails to cast its spell over me each and every time.  It seems I'm forever falling in love with a new discovery, or having a happy reunion with an old favorite.  Lately, Georges de La Tour's "The Penitent Magdalen" has been really knocking my socks off.  It's funny, cause I remember adoring this piece as a girl, but never retaining who it was by or what it was called.  Lo and behold, I keep finding myself pulled toward it on my visits this year.  I know this has become my mantra but You Really Must See It In Person!  It truly looks like nothing else - it's so rich and darkly charged and seemingly three dimensional, as if the candle will flicker at any moment, and MM will turn around and give a long, knowing look.

Comments

[Absinthe]

That one has always been one of my personal favorites as well. When I was reading up on the whole Holy Grail theory there was a point about this picture that I never picked up before. Look at the Magdalen closely and you can see that she seems to be pregnant. This painting was one of the artistic proofs they used for their theory that she was carrying Jesus' child and in sense was herself the Holy Grail.

It is kind of interesting you have to wonder why de La Tour painted it that way??