Georges de la Tour’s The Penitent Magdalene contains elements of design that we have been learning about all semester. From Tenebrism, to illumination, to the memento mori this piece is riddled with interesting attributes that I thought would be interesting to recreate for this living picture. The Penitent Magdalene which is an oil painting on canvas c.1640 was La Tour at his most accomplished as a painter. He was influenced by Caravaggio, adopting his ideas of dark tenebrism within religious paintings. Some of La Tour’s famous patrons at the time of his peak include King Louis XIII and Henry II of Lorraine.
Penitent Magdalene struck me as a simple scene but with deeper meaning. What struck me as interesting about this piece was its use of lights and darks. Illuminating the whole painting from one light source. Following standard Baroque practice the penitent Magdalene is Darkly lit and focused on the subject and the illuminated space around her. The tenebrism in this painting is strong like most baroque art. The darkness brought to the piece makes it appear gloomy, once we look deeper we see that this is a truly gloomy painting of a woman that appears to be sad and within deep thought. She clutches a skull in the painting which I thought was one of the paintings best features. This skull to me symbolizes the clear Memento Mori, a symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death. She looks into the mirror and the light of the candle while holding the skull which makes us think that she is mourning a loss or in deep thought about death most likely in a religious sense.
In lieu of the skull which I was not able to find anywhere locally or within the Draper and Maynard building, I chose to use a cow skull that I found in the still life closet in one of the drawing classrooms. I think that the skull was a really powerful part of this painting so I wanted to use some sort of skull. One of the things that drew me to this piece as well as its beautiful dark aura was the golden mirror. As a fan of antique decor I happened to have an old wooden mirror that I painted gold a while ago. So it was perfect to incorporate along with some other jewelry and a candlestick like featured in the original La Tour painting. The flame was crucial to lighting this whole painting so I had my subject hold A lighter by the candle to make that the only light source in the room.
Georges de la Tour and big names like Caravaggio understood that enlightenment can be found in a dark picture. Whether that means through tenebrism or their subject matter. I hope that with this living picture I was able to capture the idea of introspection about death. The subject Magdalene gazing into a sole light while holding a skull begs us to empathize with her plite so for that reason I wanted to incorperate that some seriousness into my reimagined idea.
