The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas is a unique institution. Its collecting categories are encyclopedic, including art from the Ancient Americas, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Europe, but its permanent collection is small, comprising around 350 objects. However, each of these works is considered a masterpiece, emblematic of a cultural highpoint from its respective era and geography. Merit for acquisitions includes aesthetic beauty, historical importance, rarity, condition, and suitability as an educational tool.
The Museum’s European holdings of Italian, French, English, Dutch, Spanish, and Flemish paintings and sculpture are especially illustrious; fortuitously, two celebrated and connected artworks, one by the Italian Caravaggio and the other by the French Georges de La Tour, are both part of the Kimbell’s collection.
The Baroque Master of Chiaroscuro
Born Michelangelo Merisi, Caravaggio (1571–1610) moved to Rome—then Italy’s cultural center—in his early 20s. After he struggled for several years as a painter, his 1595 canvas “The Cardsharps” changed the course of his career. The artwork was purchased by the distinguished art collector Cardinal Francesco del Monte, who became an important patron for Caravaggio. Exalted private and public commissions followed, catapulting the artist into celebrity; he became one of the most significant artists of the Baroque period.
Baroque art is characterized by dramatic effects, especially in terms of narrative and lighting. Many artworks feature chiaroscuro, which translates literally from Italian as light-dark. Use of this technique to create tonal contrasts results in theatricality, heightening a viewer’s emotional response to a work. Caravaggio was a master of chiaroscuro. It aided his psychologically insightful depictions of figures.
In his later paintings, he utilized an intensified version of chiaroscuro known as tenebrism, in which important composition details are illuminated and contrasted against darkened, obscured settings.
Caravaggio’s Cardsharps
In “The Cardsharps” there are three figures: a dupe at left, an older cardsharp in the middle, and a young cheat at right. While the evening may have begun with a game of backgammon, signaled by the board depicted at the edge of the table, the figures are currently engaged in a game of primero. This complex bidding and bluffing card game was a forerunner of poker; one uses a standard deck with the 8s, 9s, and 10s removed.
The setting is likely a lowly tavern and the realistic figures are theatrically lit. The young dupe is oblivious to the trickery being coordinated by the cardsharp, who raises a gloved hand in signal to the cheat hiding a card behind his back. Caravaggio purposely brings the viewer into the story, making one aware of the con and hence a participant in the scene; this is characteristic of his work.
The origin of this narrative of knavery can be traced to the Parable of the Prodigal Son. In the biblical story from the Gospel of Luke, a younger son asks his father for his inheritance. Money in hand, the son leaves home, dissipates his wealth, and becomes destitute. Repentant, he returns home and is forgiven by his father. A popular subject in Western art, it served as a moral warning to viewers. Cardplaying paintings that show a young man wasting money in bad company, though not explicitly religious, became associated with the biblical story.
The Museum writes that “Caravaggio has treated this subject not as a caricature of vice but in a novelistic way, in which the interaction of gesture and glance evokes the drama of deception and lost innocence in the most human of terms.”
The richly-dressed dupe with a dewy complexion wears a plum-colored velvet doublet with expensive blackwork embroidery, rendered with the butt end of Caravaggio’s brush, on his collar and cuffs. A doublet is a short, close-fitting jacket either sleeveless or with detachable sleeves worn over a shirt.
The cardsharp’s brocaded silk doublet is much too expensive and fashionable to be legitimately owned by a ne'er-do-well. When painting the doublet, Caravaggio blotted the wet paint with his fingers in order to enhance the textile’s realism. The cardsharp’s gloves are in service of his deception: they are slit open at the fingers in order for the wearer to be able to feel marked cards. The cheat at right has a feathered hat and striped jerkin, a leather coat favored by soldiers and adventurers.
“The Cardsharps” was highly influential, inspiring countless related versions and some 30 specific copies by European artists. The location of Caravaggio’s version was unknown for much of the 20th century. It was rediscovered in a private European collection in 1987.
The Kimbell Art Museum used infrared reflectography to make sure they were acquiring the lost original. Analysis revealed several “pentimenti,” changes made by the artist during the creation of the work, which were consistent with Caravaggio’s process, since he did not use preliminary drawings. This strengthened the case that the work was by Caravaggio as a copyist would have simply transcribed the completed version.
‘The Cheat With the Ace of Clubs’
The art of Georges de La Tour (1593–1652) reflects Caravaggio’s influence. Born in the duchy of Lorraine, now part of France, much of La Tour’s life remains a mystery. It is unknown how he was exposed to Caravaggio’s work. His use of humble subjects and tenebrism harken back to the Italian master. Still, La Tour forged in this genre and devotional paintings a unique style all his own, creating works that are typically austere yet powerfully spiritual.
La Tour spent most of his career in Lorraine, but he was favored with Parisian court patronage and created works for the likes of Cardinal Richelieu and King Louis XIII. Similar to Caravaggio, his life was relatively short, yet in the time he had, he created definitive works of art. While Caravaggio left a legacy revered for centuries, La Tour, despite success in his lifetime, was forgotten after death. He was not “rediscovered” by scholars until the early 20th century.
La Tour’s “The Cheat With the Ace of Clubs” is considered one of the masterworks of 17th-century French art. It amplifies Caravaggio’s gambling scene of vice by introducing wine and women. This work is resplendent with brilliant use of color, especially reds, and sumptuous dress that feature a range of textiles and textures. As in Caravaggio’s work, the figures are playing primero. La Tour creates “a psychological drama that unfolds through the cues of their sidelong gazes and the measured gestures that signal their next moves,” the Museum notes.
There are four figures in this scene: two ladies and two men, whose elegant forms are a signature of La Tour. The cheat at left tips his cards toward the viewer, who can also see the cards he has hidden behind his back.
As in “The Cardsharps,” one becomes closely involved in the narrative. The serving woman is seemingly creating a diversion with a wine glass. Thus, the cheat will be able to place the secretive cards on the table and win the gold coins visible near the dupe at right. The seated woman with the perfectly shaped oval face is identifiable as a courtesan due to her revealing dress, overdone finery, and excessive jewels.
‘The Card Sharp with the Ace of Diamonds’
La Tour painted another version of the scene, “The Card Sharp With the Ace of Diamonds,” now at the Louvre. Comparison between this and the La Tour picture at the Kimbell is important for understanding more about La Tour’s practice. Scholars know of no existing drawings by La Tour, but they believe preparatory drawings were likely part of his artistic process. While La Tour did shift and transform figures and still life elements between the two card game canvases, a number of outlines of forms in the earlier Kimbell version identically correspond to the Louvre’s. This strongly implies some sort of drawing template was used by the artist.
