TOURNIER, Nicolas
(b. 1590, Montbéliard, d. ca. 1638, Toulouse)

Denial of St Peter

c. 1625
Oil on canvas, 171 x 252 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Tournier was the pupil of Valentin de Boulogne, a French Caravaggesque painter. He counteracted the Baroque use of light with a very personal and static way of handling figures with serene evenness of movement, a certain harmonius moderation in the relations between gesture, expression and sentiment, whose equilibrium, which might almost be called classical, is similar to the Gothic statuary.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 21 minutes):
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Missa Brevis (Tu es Petrus)