One of the most important interpreters of 17th-century painting, famous for the evocative lighting effects of his candlelit scenes.
The relationship in the 17th century between Italian painting and northern European artists was evident to scholars, from the beginning of the 20th century, especially with regard to luminous inventions. Published on the occasion of the extraordinary exhibition, the book is devoted to the Lorraine painter and his contemporary masters, and proposes a series of comparisons and reflections on painting from nature and on light experiments that accompanied its diffusion in Europe.
The volume is divided into five sections (Mary Magdalene and the light on female destiny; Light between the court and the street; The Return of Gerard van Honthorst; Painting the night; Emotions brought to light) and features works by Caravaggio, de La Tour, Orazio Gentileschi, Gerrit van Honthorst, Hendrick ter Brugghen, Paulus Bor, Trophime Bigot, Frans Hals and other masters of the 17th-century.
It opens with a section on the Magdalene, a female figure catalyzing experiments involving painting from nature and in nocturnal light and who triggered a series of reflections, some of which disconcerting in their audacity, on the theme of beauty and fate through the representation of woman. The gleaming Allegory of Wealth by Orazio Gentileschi introduces the Caravaggesque variations of light in the early 1620s.
The third section is devoted to the return of the Dutch painters who spent a period of time in Italy in the first decade of the 17th century: nocturnal scenes, both secular and religious, with isolated metal objects lit by candlelight, beguiling them with chiaroscuro and deceiving their senses. The fourth section is devoted to the elaboration of the lighting effects in the night scene, a crucial theme in the painting of the first half of the century for the artistic literature of the time, where there was a lot of interest toward the "artificial light". The last section presents a selection of masterpieces and shows how the splendour of light as a principle of painting is capable of bringing forth emotions from the shadows, from the realm of nature, which is subject to the passing of time, transmitting them to the superior world of painting.
