While guiding his students and lecture audiences in their discovery of XVIIth-century art, on several occasions, in the course of dealing with VERMEER and CARAVAGGIO, Jacques-Edouard BERGER also devoted some time to the distinctive work of Georges de La Tour.
A synthesis of various lectures (notably 1985 and 1992) furnished the raw material for this World Art Treasures program..
Along with this, you are also invited to discover a moving document written by
the student Jacques-Edouard BERGER at age 14, in 1959: his initial project
on Georges de La Tour. The text, which represents his first steps on the
way to becoming a great art explorer,
reveals a particularly communicative enthusiasm and a gift for sharing knowledge that were to characterize his entire career.
He starts his essay off by briefly situating his subject matter, explaining with modest simplicity what led him to undertake the project. These FEW WORDS OF INTRODUCTION are meant as a prelude to his extraordinary pilgrimage as a whole. It seems altogether fitting for them to appear here, at the start of our program.