''Game of Bowls'' is a 1908 painting by the French artist
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prim ...
. The painting shows three young men, probably Matisse's sons and nephew, playing a game of
boules
''Boules'' () is a collective name for a wide range of games similar to bowls and bocce (In French: jeu or jeux, in Croatian: boćanje and in Italian: gioco or giochi) in which the objective is to throw or roll heavy balls (called in France, ...
. Matisse sees the game as a manifestation of man's creativity, and an instrument to use in understanding the codes of life. The painting is part of Matisse's series on man's "Golden Age" and was part of
Sergei Shchukin's collection before the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mom ...
of 1917. It is now in the collection of
The Hermitage,
St. Petersburg, Russia
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
.
[State Hermitage Museum ]
Game of Bowls
/ref>
References
1908 paintings
Paintings by Henri Matisse
Paintings in the collection of the Hermitage Museum
Sports paintings
Boules
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