"St. Joseph in the Carpenter's Shop"

La Tour's nocturne painting shows how he used lighting effects to elevate drama over naturalism. Art historians say it  is commonly known that light transmitted across a hand with its fingers closed produces a bright red colour, which is at its brightest where the fingers touch one another, and darker where the hand is thicker. Also that in reality one would never observe a white contour around the fingers, especially when they slightly overlap as they do in de leTour's painting   La Tour's canvases show he moved beyond the mere description of the physical phenomenon of the light released by the candle in favor of a more highly symbolic value.