TOURNIER, Nicolas

The painting shows the crucified Christ with the Virgin, St John and St Vincent de Paul.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 22 minutes):

Heinrich Sch�tz: Die sieben Worte am Kreuz SWV 478

Tournier was the pupil of Valentin de Boulogne, a French Caravaggesque painter. He counteracted the Baroque use of light with a very personal and static way of handling figures with serene evenness of movement, a certain harmonius moderation in the relations between gesture, expression and sentiment, whose equilibrium, which might almost be called classical, is similar to the Gothic statuary.

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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Missa Brevis (Tu es Petrus)

In the 1620s in Roman circles, a definite change came about in the subject matter of musical paintings. The representation of figures playing musical instruments in ‘cultivated’ domestic interiors (the direct descendants of Caravaggio’s Lute Player and Musicians) disappeared. Within the space of a very few years they were replaced by large numbers of representations of concerts in public places and ‘popular’ locations.

These themes were explored by Tournier in such works as the Drinking Party with a Lute Player, in which boisterous groups of figures sit around a table in a tavern. This painting is a perfect example of what the seventeenth-century German historian Joachim van Sandrart called the ‘Manfrediana methodus’, or Manfredi’s method. According to Sandrart, Bartolomeo Manfredi’s followers preferred to paint ‘soldiers who played cards, musicians who played various instruments and other similar half-length figures.’ Tournier, one of the most important French Caravaggist painters active in Rome during the 1620s, was undoubtedly ruments in ‘cultivated’ domestic interiors (the direct descendants of Caravaggio’s influenced by Manfredi.

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Franz Schubert: An die Laute (To the Lute) D 905

Tournier was the only French painter to employ a dramatic force equal to that of Caravaggio. Most of his pictures are not in good condition and are often difficult to judge, but it is possible to see that he favoured simple pyramidal compositions with dramatic lighting which seem, surprisingly enough, to be inspired by Caravaggio’s last compositions painted in Sicily, which Tournier can hardly have known in Rome. The Deposition from the Cross and the Entombment (both in the Mus�e des Augustins, Toulouse) lack the inhibitions and decorative preoccupations found in almost all other Caravaggesque painters, except those by Valentin. Tournier’s stature can be judged by these two intense paintings alone.

The painting was executed for the chapel of the P�nitents Noirs in Toulouse.

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Francesco da Milano: Tre fantasie for lute

The composition follows the example set by Caravaggio and populrized by Bartolomeo Manfredi. The intimity of the scene is close to the paintings of Georges de La Tour.

There is a similar version of the painting in the City Art Gallery in St. Louis.

This painting was executed - together with the St Paul - for the Lord of Pennautier in Toulouse.

This painting shows the influence of Bartolomeo Manfredi, a close pupil of Caravaggio. It was executed - together with the Soldier - for the Lord of Pennautier in Toulouse.

This painting, one of the most important and complex by Nicolas Tournier, was executed during the French artist’s Roman period. However, there was a heated debate on whether it is attributable to Tournier or Bartolomeo Manfredi. Since the 170s, the attribution to Tournier seems to be accepted.

In the present painting Tournier created a detached and elegant genre scene, far removed from Manfredi’s emotional involvement in his direct and somewhat rustic scenes. It revolves around the beautiful pagan altar that serves as a gaming table, the true focus of the composition.

In Toulouse, Nicolas Tournier painted religious pictures in the idiom of Caravaggio and genre compositions in the manner of Caravaggio’s pupil Bartolomeo Manfredi. The Guardian Angel (Tobias and the Angel) is in the Chapel of the Annunciation of Narbonne Cathedral.

In Toulouse, Nicolas Tournier painted religious pictures in the idiom of Caravaggio and genre compositions in the manner of Caravaggio’s pupil Bartolomeo Manfredi, but he also executed the Victory of Constantine, more in emulation of Giulio Romano. The painting depicts the Battle of the Milvian Bridge which took place between the Roman Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius on 28 October 312.