On a beautiful Springlike Sunday in February, the Metropolitan Museum was buzzing with art lovers of all ages. One particular piece of painting; The Fortune Teller (a representation of a vibrant scene executed with oil paint by a Baroque French painter Georges de La Tour) was surrounded by captivated viewers. The skillful portrayal of a true to life imagery with dimensions of 40 1/8 x 48 5/8 inches is filled with moods such as; mystery, wealth, ignorance and cunningness. The painting with its extraordinary three-dimensional visual representation was created in the 1600s. The plot of the Fortune Teller painting tells the story of a naive, arrogant, wealthy looking young man having his destiny read by an elderly woman; the fortune teller. The …show more content…
De La Cruz was careful in the way he painted the garments. It can be deduced that he spent a good amount of time painting the individual textures, patterns, flowers, and lacework. This great attention to detail shows that the 17th Century painters loved details and thought it was important to drawing attention to their work.The rich, delicate and carefully painted garments with textures and pattern lets the viewers get lost in their work as they take note of each stitch or design. And finally the way de La Cruz painted the fortune teller’s face is to be admired. The deep lines along her face and neck is so life like making her realistic and laboriously observed.
De La Tour’s vivid and highly effective style of painting depicts what the 17th-Century European painters were trying to achieve. With the expert use of dramatic elements such as; mood, pose and texture he was able to bring out strong, deep and vivid emotions in his painting, for example; the deception of the women enclosing on the youth, and those emotions of the young man naiveness and air of being showered by wealth. These emotions pull the onlookers in as they silently and cautiously take in each element and accurate