Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Nicolas Tournier
French; 17th-century
Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art
78%
The Denial of St. Peter. c1630. Oil on canvas
What Tournier learned from Caravaggio was how, in a painting, to string together a series of figures from one side of the canvas to the other such that the image throbs, but then also, at critical junctures, to toss all a composition's built-up jostling energy straight out at the viewer by including subtle little features that jut threateningly towards the picture plane, as if they'd puncture it. What Tournier didn't quite learn from Caravaggio, however, was how dense the figure groupings, and how precisely arranged the jutting objects, need to be to relieve a painting of its excess energy without sapping it of its power. This Denial is a commendable painting, but it's a bit roomier than it should be (see the space between the saint and the green-legginged guy), such that those moments of outward extension feel tentative and unresolved. The yellow elbow, the table's corner, the upturned fire — none quite attack the painting's surface the way they should. Still, the unified appearance of the group despite all eight figures being in a state of constant and often oppositional motion is impressive. (TFS, 2025)
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. (TFS, 2025)