Personal Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Nicolas Tournier
French; 17th-century
St. Louis, MO: Saint Louis Art Museum
76%
Banquet Scene with a Lute Player. c1625. Oil on canvas
Were this thing painted with some more oomph it would be an unequivocal stunner, but as it is there's a bit too much ambivalence in the modeling and a bit too little wow to the light. Its arrangement, however, is enough to make up for its shortcomings. From the server's downcast eyes to the lute player's hand the painting angles down and rightwards. But just where, with the slope of the musician's shoulders, everything would fall off the right edge of the canvas, the instrument (tilted up and in) casts all movement back to the left, where it glances off the glance of that bookending sitter and right off the front of the painting. If, in this pinballing of looks and gestures, there's equivocation about what the painting is up to, Tournier is straightforward with his aims in two spots: the corner of the table and the jutting elbow to its left. Each of these elements seem poised to pop the picture plane. (2025)