La Madeleine aux Deux Flammes,
The Penitent Magdalen, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City, 2011
Oil on canvas, 180 x 120 cm
Georges de la Tour, La Madelaine aux deux flammes, ca 1640

In his flame paintings, Samyn reproduces highly enlarged details of
old master paintings by Georges de la Tour (France, 1593-1652). As a painter, de la Tour was particularly famous for his use of light and dark. Light is also the subject here for Samyn, with flames enlarged to the scale of the human body and painted in glazes. In this series, he also examines the concept of original and copy, particularly by painting the two versions of Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene as a diptych, or, interested in their reflection, the two flames in La Madeleine aux deux flammes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Dans cette série, Fabrice Samyn se concentre sur l’agrandissement à taille humaine des détails de flammes peintes en clair-obscur par Georges de La Tour. La lumière est le sujet principal de ces peintures réalisées en glacis par Fabrice Samyn. Il questionne ici la notion d’original et de copie, ainsi que celle du reflet.