Soldier at a Game of Chess
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''Soldier at a Game of Chess'' (in French ''Soldat jouant aux échecs'', or ''Le Soldat à la partie d'échecs'', also referred to as ''Joueur d'échecs''),Correspondance échangée entre Léonce Rosenberg et Jean Metzinger, 25 May 1916, Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Centre de documentation et de recherche du MNAM/Cci, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (Metzinger mentions the paintings as titled ''Joueur d'échecs'')
/ref> is a painting by the French artist
Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...
. While serving as a medical orderly during
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
in Sainte-Menehould, France, Metzinger bore witness to the ravages of war firsthand. Rather than depicting such horrors, Metzinger chose to represent a poilu sitting at a game of chess, smoking a cigarette. The military subject of this painting is possibly a
self-portrait A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...
. During March 1915, Metzinger was called to serve the military, and was invalided out of service later that year. ''Soldier at a Game of Chess'' was painted either before or during his mobilization.''Soldat jouant aux échecs: un portrait cubiste magistral'', Musée de Lodève
/ref> Evidence found in a letter by Metzinger addressed to
Léonce Rosenberg Léonce Rosenberg (12 September 1879 in Paris – 31 July 1947 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) was an art collector, writer, publisher, and one of the most influential French art dealers of the 20th century. His greatest impact was as a supporter and promote ...
suggests the work was painted before his March 1915 mobilization, and possibly late 1914. This distilled form of
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
, soon to be known as '' Crystal Cubism'', is consistent with Metzinger's shift, between 1914 and 1916, towards a strong emphasis on large, flat surface activity, with overlapping geometric planes. The manifest primacy of the underlying
architectonic Architectonics designates the study or character of various types of structure. It may also, more specifically, refer to: Philosophy *Architectonics in Aristotelian philosophy *Kantian architectonics **C. S. Peirce's adaptation of the Kantian c ...
s of the composition, entrenched in the abstract, controls practically all of the elements of the painting. Color remains primordial but is moderate and sharply delineated by boundary conditions.Joann Moser, ''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, Cubist works, 1910–1921'', The University of Iowa Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Trust, University of Washington Press 1985, pp. 44, 45 The painting—a gift of John L. Strauss, Jr. in memory of his father John L. Strauss—forms part of the permanent collection at the
Smart Museum of Art The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The permanent collection has over 15,000 objects. Admission is free and open to the general public. The Smart Muse ...
, located on the campus of the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
in
Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
.


Description

''Soldier at a Game of Chess'', initialed "JM" and signed "JMetzinger" (lower right), is an oil painting on canvas with dimensions 81.3 x 61 cm (32 x 24 in.). The vertical composition is painted in a geometrically advanced Cubist style, representing a solitary French soldier playing a game of
chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
. He wears a military hat ('' képi'') and bears a cigarette in his mouth. Because of this, Joann Moser suggests that this may be a self-portrait. Images of Metzinger often depicted him with a cigarette in his mouth: consider for example
Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...
's 1906 ''Portrait of Metzinger'' (''Man with a Tulip''); Suzanne Phocas, ''Portrait de Metzinger'', 1926. The soldier's head and hat are seen in both frontal side views simultaneously. His facial features are eminently stylized, simple, geometric, resting on rounded shoulders delineated by a rectangular structure superimposed with elemental monochromatic planes that compose the background. Depth of field is practically nonexistent. Blues, reds, green and black dominate the composition. The table—treated in
faux bois ''Faux bois'' (from the French for ''false wood'') refers to the artistic imitation of wood or wood grains in various media. The craft has roots in the Renaissance with trompe-l'œil. It was probably first crafted with concrete using an iron ar ...
, or trompe-l'œil—and the
chessboard A chessboard is a used to play chess. It consists of 64 squares, 8 rows by 8 columns, on which the chess pieces are placed. It is square in shape and uses two colours of squares, one light and one dark, in a chequered pattern. During play, the bo ...
are practically seen from above, while the chess pieces are observed from the side; his right hand is fused within. "Direct reference to observed reality" is present, but the emphasis is placed on the self-sufficiency of the painting as an object unto itself. "Orderly qualities" and the "autonomous purity" of the composition are a prime concern.Christopher Green, ''Late Cubism'', MoMA, Grove Art Online, Oxford University Press, 2009
/ref> The overall composition is highly crystalline in its geometricized materialization, consisting of superimposed synthetic planes; something Albert Gleizes would later refer to, in ''La Peinture et ses lois'' (1922), as "simultaneous movements of translation and rotation of the plane".Peter Brooke, ''Albert Gleizes: For and Against the Twentieth Century'', Yale University Press, 2001, pp. 85-102
Gleizes too had been working along similar lines during his mobilization at Toul, where he painted '' Portrait of an Army Doctor (Portrait d'un médecin militaire)'',
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
. The synthetic factor was ultimately taken furthest of all from within the Cubists by Gleizes.Christopher Green, ''Cubism and its Enemies, Modern Movements and Reaction in French Art, 1916–1928'', Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1987, pp. 13–47, 215


Mobilization

The number 24 on the soldier's collar represents the . That regiment participated in a brutal offensive on 25 May 1915 in
Aix-Noulette Aix-Noulette () is a Communes of France, commune in the Pas-de-Calais Departments of France, department in the Hauts-de-France region of France. Geography A farming and light industrial village situated some west of Lens, Pas-de-Calais, Lens at ...
, where contact with a bitter enemy caused unusually heavy losses. Metzinger had been stationed further south of the devastated area. The town of Sainte-Menehould, located south of the
Forest of Argonne The Forest of Argonne () is a long strip of mountainous and wild woodland in northeastern France, approximately east of Paris. The forest measures roughly long and wide filled with many small hills and deep valleys formed by water run-off fro ...
, became a command and control center of the
Marne Marne can refer to: Places France *Marne (river), a tributary of the Seine *Marne (department), a département in northeastern France named after the river * La Marne, a commune in western France *Marne, a legislative constituency (France) Nethe ...
. From January 1915, St. Menehould was the command post of the IIIe armée française under General
Maurice Sarrail Maurice Paul Emmanuel Sarrail (6 April 1856 – 23 March 1929) was a French general of the First World War. Sarrail's openly socialist political connections made him a rarity amongst the Catholics, conservatism, conservatives and monarchism, mo ...
. The city suffered its first bombing campaign by canon the same year. Thereafter, aircraft and
zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...
s took over the skies. In September 1915 the successful counter-offensive moved the front closer to the German border.L'Histoire
, accessed 24 January 2011.


Crystal Cubism

The Cubist considerations manifested prior to the outset of World War I—such as the fourth dimension, dynamism of modern life, the occult, and
Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson
's concept of
duration Duration may refer to: * The amount of time elapsed between two events * Duration (music) – an amount of time or a particular time interval, often cited as one of the fundamental aspects of music * Duration (philosophy) – a theory of time and ...
—had now been vacated, replaced by a purely formal reference frame. This clarity and sense of order spread to almost all of the artists under contract with
Léonce Rosenberg Léonce Rosenberg (12 September 1879 in Paris – 31 July 1947 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) was an art collector, writer, publisher, and one of the most influential French art dealers of the 20th century. His greatest impact was as a supporter and promote ...
—including Metzinger, Juan Gris, Jacques Lipchitz, Henri Laurens, Auguste Herbin,
Joseph Csaky Joseph Csaky (also written Josef Csàky, Csáky József, József Csáky and Joseph Alexandre Czaky) (18 March 1888 – 1 May 1971) was a Hungarian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist, best known for his early participation in the ...
and
Gino Severini Gino Severini (7 April 1883 – 26 February 1966) was an Italian Painting, painter and a leading member of the Futurism (art), Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classici ...
—leading to the descriptive term 'Crystal Cubism', coined by the critic
Maurice Raynal Portrait of Maurice Raynal (1911), by Juan Gris. Maurice Raynal (3 February 1884, Paris – 18 September 1954, Suresnes) was a French art critic and an ardent propagandist of cubism. Some publications *''Essai de Définition de la Peinture C ...
. By its very date of execution, Metzinger's ''Soldier at a Game of Chess'' was precursor to a style that would become known as Crystal Cubism. Comparisons have been made between war-time works of Metzinger and Juan Gris. These works were created within a specific context, a particular timeframe, a relatively restrained milieu, and influenced by a diverse grouping of factors. Metzinger's milieu at the time included his close friend Juan Gris. Both artists (with Lipchitz) exchanged ideas and worked together in Paris and Beaulieu-lès-Loches. Despite theoretical or conceptual differences, the works by these artists (and practically all those who exhibited at Rosenberg's Galerie de L'Effort Moderne) bear striking similarities.
The 'Latin' virtues of clarity and order were indeed dominants in the recent works of most who exhibited. Nowhere was this more so than is the works of three artists who had been in close contact with one another from 1916... the painters Gris and Jean Metzinger, and the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz... It is above all the wartime work of these three Cubists that can be analysed as a move towards order alongside as process of distillation. (Green, 1987, p. 25)
The new aesthetic unity associated with the underlying geometric structure of the works created by these artists is what would lead to the appellation Crystal Cubism. Metzinger and Gris were at the forefront, among the leaders of this second phase of Cubism.Christopher Green, Christian Derouet, Karin von Maur, Whitechapel Art Gallery
''Juan Gris: Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 18 September -29 November 1992: Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
, 18 December 1992 - 14 February 1993: Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, 6 March - 2 May 1993'', Yale University Press, 1992, pp. 6, 22-60]
In Crystal Cubist works, the distinction between the background and the figure are blurred. Rather than gradients of tone or color, the works are painted with flat, uniform sections of tone and color. Though highly abstract in overall construction, objects or elements of the real world are present. The primacy of the manifest geometric manifold, the angular juxtaposition of the surface planes, are distinct features of this second phase of Cubism. This reductionist style is consistent with a process of distillation otherwise auxiliary before the war. During 1916, Sunday discussions at the studio of Lipchitz, included Metzinger, Gris,
Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
, Diego Rivera,
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 prima ...
,
Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (, ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and ...
,
Pierre Reverdy Pierre Reverdy (; 13 September 1889 – 17 June 1960) was a French poet whose works were inspired by and subsequently proceeded to influence the provocative art movements of the day, Surrealism, Dadaism and Cubism. The loneliness and spiritual a ...
,
André Salmon André Salmon (4 October 1881, Paris – 12 March 1969, Sanary-sur-Mer) was a French poet, art critic and writer. He was one of the early defenders of Cubism, with Guillaume Apollinaire and Maurice Raynal. Biography André Salmon was born in P ...
,
Max Jacob Max Jacob (; 12 July 1876 – 5 March 1944) was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic. Life and career After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic ca ...
, and Blaise Cendrars.Daniel Robbins, ''Jean Metzinger: At the Center of Cubism'', 1985, ''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect'', The University of Iowa Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Trust, University of Washington Press, pp. 9–24 Metzinger and Gris were in close contact. In a letter written to Albert Gleizes in Barcelona during the war, dated 4 July 1916, Metzinger writes:
After two years of study I have succeeded in establishing the basis of this new perspective I have talked about so much. It is not the materialist perspective of Gris, nor the romantic perspective of Picasso. It is rather a metaphysical perspective—I take full responsibility for the word. You can't begin to imagine what I've found out since the beginning of the war, working outside painting but for painting. The geometry of the fourth space has no more secret for me. Previously I had only intuitions, now I have certainty. I have made a whole series of theorems on the laws of displacement 'déplacement'' of reversal 'retournement''etc. I have read Schoute, Rieman (sic), Argand, Schlegel etc. The actual result? A new harmony. Don't take this word harmony in its ordinary 'banal''everyday sense, take it in its original 'primitif''sense. Everything is number. The mind 'esprit''hates what cannot be measured: it must be reduced and made comprehensible. That is the secret. There in nothing more to it 'pas de reste à l'opération'' Painting, sculpture, music, architecture, ''lasting art'' is never anything more than a mathematical expression of the relations that exist between the internal and the external, the self 'le moi''and the world. (Metzinger, 4 July 1916)Peter Brooke, ''Higher Geometries, Precedents: Charles Henry and Peter Lenz, The subjective experience of space, Metzinger, Gris and Maurice Princet''
/ref>
The 'new perspective' according to Daniel Robbins, "was a mathematical relationship between the ideas in his mind and the exterior world". The 'fourth space' for Metzinger was the space of the mind. In a second letter to Gleizes, dated 26 July 1916, Metzinger writes:
If painting was an end in itself it would enter into the category of the minor arts which appeal only to physical pleasure... No. Painting is a language—and it has its syntax and its laws. To shake up that framework a bit to give more strength or life to what you want to say, that isn't just a right, it's a duty; but you must never lose sight of the End. The End, however, isn't the subject, nor the object, nor even the picture—the End, it is the idea. (Metzinger, 26 July 1916)
Continuing, Metzinger mentions the differences between himself and Juan Gris:
Someone from whom I feel ever more distant is Juan Gris. I admire him but I cannot understand why he wears himself out with decomposing objects. Myself, I am advancing towards synthetic unity and I don't analyze any more. I take from things what seems to me to have meaning and be most suitable to express my thought. I want to be direct, like Voltaire. No more metaphors. Ah those stuffed tomatoes of all the St-Pol-Roux of painting.
Some of the ideas expressed in these letters to Gleizes were reproduced in an article written by Paul Dermée, published in the magazine ''
SIC The Latin adverb ''sic'' (; "thus", "just as"; in full: , "thus was it written") inserted after a quoted word or passage indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed or translated exactly as found in the source text, complete with any e ...
'' in 1919, but the existence of letters themselves remained unknown until the mid-1980s. From 1916, Lipchitz, Gris and Metzinger had been in close contact with one another. The three had just signed contracts with the dealer, art collector and gallery owner
Léonce Rosenberg Léonce Rosenberg (12 September 1879 in Paris – 31 July 1947 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) was an art collector, writer, publisher, and one of the most influential French art dealers of the 20th century. His greatest impact was as a supporter and promote ...
. It is the work of these three artists, executed during the war, that can be analyzed as a process of distillation in a shift towards order and purity. This process would continue through 1918 when the three spent part of the summer together in Beaulieu-lès-Loches to escape the bombardment of Paris. At an opening held at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, on 9 June 1947, Léonce Rosenberg related his impressions to Hélène Bauret:
In the painting "La Tricoteuse", hanging next to works by Gris, Metzinger reveals himself more of a painter, more natural, more flexible 'plus souple''than Gris. Often, Gris would tell me: "Ah! If I could brush 'brosser''like the French!"
Metzinger's radical geometrization of form as an underlying architectural basis for his 1914–15 compositions is already visible in his work circa 1912–13, in paintings such as ''
Au Vélodrome ''Au Vélodrome'', also known as ''At the Cycle-Race Track'' and ''Le cycliste'', is a painting by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger. The work illustrates the final meters of the Paris–Roubaix race, and portrays its 1912 winner Char ...
'' (1912) and '' Le Fumeur'' (1913). Where before, the perception of depth had been greatly reduced, now, the depth of field was no greater than a bas-relief. Metzinger's evolution toward synthesis has its origins in the configuration of flat squares, trapezoidal and rectangular planes that overlap and interweave, a "new perspective" in accord with the "laws of displacement". In the case of '' Le Fumeur'' Metzinger filled in these simple shapes with gradations of color, wallpaper-like patterns and rhythmic curves. So too in ''Au Vélodrome''. But the underlying armature upon which all is built is palpable. Vacating these non-essential features would lead Metzinger on a path towards Crystal Cubism: works created before the War, and after the artist's demobilization as a medical orderly during the war, such as '' Femme au miroir'', private collection; ''Landscape with Open Window'' (1915) Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes; ''Femme à la dentelle'' (1916) Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; ''Summer'' (1916) Statens Museum for Kunst; ''Le goûter'' (1917) Galerie Daniel Malingue; ''Tête de femme'' (1916–17) private collection; ''Femme devant le miroir'' (c. 1914) private collection; ''Femme au miroir'' (1916–17) Donn Shapiro collection; ''Maison cubistes au bord de l'eau'' (1916); and ''Femme et paysage à l'aqueduc'' (1916).Jean Metzinger, 1916, ''Femme et paysage à l'aqueduc'' (''Woman and landscape with an aqueduct''), oil and sand on canvas, 73 x 54 cm (28 ¾ x 21 ¼ in.), Christie's Paris, 2 May 2012, lot 23, est. 400,000–600,000 EUR, sold 937,000 EUR
/ref>
If the beauty of a painting depends solely on its pictorial qualities: retain only certain elements, those that seem to suit our expressive needs, then with these elements, build a new object, an object which we can adapt to the surface of the painting without subterfuge. For that object to look like something known, I am increasingly considering not to be useful. For me it is enough for it to be "well made", for there to be a perfect accord between the parts and the whole. (Jean Metzinger, quoted in ''Au temps des Cubistes, 1910–1920'')


Wartime and after

Following the declaration of war in August 1914, many artists were mobilized, almost simultaneously: Metzinger, Gleizes,
Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...
, Léger, de La Fresnaye,
Georges Valmier Georges Valmier (11 April 1885 – 25 March 1937) was a French painter. His work encompassed the great movements in the modern history of painting, starting with Impressionism in his early years, then Cubism which he discovered when he was ar ...
and
Duchamp-Villon Raymond Duchamp-Villon (5 November 1876 – 9 October 1918) was a French sculptor. Life and art Duchamp-Villon was born Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Normandy region of France, the second son of Eugène and Lucie Duch ...
. Each found the space and time to make art, sustaining differing types of Cubism (primarily sketches) during the war years. They discovered a ubiquitous link between the Cubist syntax (beyond pre-war attitudes) and that of the novelty and anonymity of mechanized warfare. Cubism evolved as much a result of an ''evasion'' of the inconceivable atrocities of war as of nationalistic pressures. Along with the evasion came the need to diverge further and further away from the depiction of things. As the rift between art and life grew, so too came the burgeoning need for a process of distillation. Following the armistice and the series of exhibitions at Galerie de L'Effort Moderne, the rift between art and life—and the overt distillation that came with it—had become the canon of Cubist orthodoxy; and it would persist with the peace that followed. Metzinger served very close to the front during World War I as a medical aide, and was probably with his surgical automobile when ''Soldier at a Game of Chess'' was painted.The Art of JAMA: Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 3, M. Therese Southgate, Oxford University Press, Mar 17, 2011
/ref> However, very few of his works represent scenes associated with war. And rather than delving into the actual carnage of war, this painting evokes an idealized theory of war. Instead, his interest is captured by mathematical rationality, order, his faith in humanity and modernity. The war, however, is very present in this work, by the presence of the soldier and his engagement with chess, simultaneously an intellectual game and a battle. The soldier plays an
abstract strategy game Abstract strategy games admit a number of definitions which distinguish these from strategy games in general, mostly involving no or minimal narrative theme, outcomes determined only by player choice (with no randomness), and perfect information. ...
in which, whatever his strategy, his existence is adroitly dependent on non-deterministic results of his tactical decisions. His role is to minimize luck and the apparition of undesirable possibilities. As J. Mark Thompson wrote in his article "Defining the Abstract":
There is an intimate relationship between such games and puzzles: every board position presents the player with the puzzle, What is the best move?, which in theory could be solved by logic alone. A good abstract game can therefore be thought of as a "family" of potentially interesting logic puzzles, and the play consists of each player posing such a puzzle to the other. Good players are the ones who find the most difficult puzzles to present to their opponents.Thompson, J. Mark. (2000, July) Defining the Abstract. The Games Journal. Retrieved April 2, 2010
/ref>International Abstract Games Organisation article on game genres, Retrieved September 10, 2010
The sculptures of Lipchitz, Laurens and Csaky, and the paintings of Gris, Severini and Gleizes represented Cubism in its most distilled form between 1916 and 1920. However, by the time his exhibition at the Galerie de L'Effort Moderne at the outset of 1919—just as before the war—Metzinger was considered one of the leaders of the movement.''Picasso Posse: The Mona Lisa of Cubism'', Michael Taylor, 2010, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1 Audio Stop 439, Podcast
/ref> His paintings at this exhibition were perceived as highly significant. Images were now created solely out of the imagination of the artist (or virtually so), independent of any visual starting point. Observed reality and all that is referred to in life are no longer needed as foundation for artistic production. The synthetic manipulation of abstract geometric shapes, or "mathematical expression of the relations that exist between the ''le moi'' and the world" (in Metzinger's words), was the ideal metaphysical starting point. Only afterwards would those structures be made to denote objects of predilection. Indeed, the wartime distillation of Metzinger's Cubism came with an acceleration in the type of games that could be played tactically with paradox by manipulating conflicting predications of planimetric flatness and the perspectival depth of space. This game playing would culminate between 1917 and 1919, but is already palpable in ''Soldier at a Game of Chess''. The perspectival presentation is only fragmentary—almost non-Cubist in abstract guise—and lacks coherence, so that the resulting composition is throughout paradoxical. There are sufficient indications to suggest a soldier and the activity in which he's engaged; his military cap (and an echo of it in red), a hand (however transparent it may be), a face (with a cigarette in its mouth), the alternating colored squares of a chessboard, a
rook Rook (''Corvus frugilegus'') is a bird of the corvid family. Rook or rooks may also refer to: Games *Rook (chess), a piece in chess *Rook (card game), a trick-taking card game Military *Sukhoi Su-25 or Rook, a close air support aircraft * USS ' ...
, a pawn and other chess pieces. But the figure and his setting simultaneously fuse as an arrangement of planes that cancel those indications of depth any greater than a
relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
. And the disorientations are compounded by Metzinger's placing of green and orange in the soldiers upward-turned face, while the red of his arms espouse the echo-like profile of the face and cap in the background plane directed downward toward the game, for it becomes almost inevitable to see the soldier's
alter ego An alter ego (Latin for "other I", " doppelgänger") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a differen ...
; an effect that both pulls the man into the background of the composition and pushes him forward towards the viewer, again, canceling out indications of depth. Here, Metzinger uses a checkerboard and wooden table to establish a clearly demarcated fore-plane that is non-fixed in relation to which its 'hovering' chess pieces are situated. This profound battle between planimetric and perspectival dimensions as here in ''Soldier at a Game of Chess'' has precedence in Metzinger's Cubism of 1912–13, but the absence of decorative elements, the clarity and sense of order, and degree of game-playing with conflicting codes for the personification of space that he refined during the war places the artist at the forefront of the nascent form of art dubbed Crystal Cubism by the critic
Maurice Raynal Portrait of Maurice Raynal (1911), by Juan Gris. Maurice Raynal (3 February 1884, Paris – 18 September 1954, Suresnes) was a French art critic and an ardent propagandist of cubism. Some publications *''Essai de Définition de la Peinture C ...
.


Exhibitions and reproductions


JAMA

On 26 May 1993 ''Soldier at a Game of Chess'' was reproduced on the cover of '' JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association'', a
peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
medical journal A medical journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that communicates medical information to physicians, other health professionals. Journals that cover many medical specialties are sometimes called general medical journals. History The first ...
published by the American Medical Association covering all aspects of the
biomedical sciences Biomedical sciences are a set of sciences applying portions of natural science or formal science, or both, to develop knowledge, interventions, or technology that are of use in healthcare or public health. Such disciplines as medical microbio ...
. From 1964 to 2013 ''JAMA'' published full color images of artwork on its cover, accompanied by essays inside the journal. "JAMA's former editor, George Lundberg, wrote that this was part of an initiative to inform readers about nonclinical aspects of medicine and public health", and to emphasize the link between the humanities and medical science.Jefferey M. Levine, MD, ''JAMA removes cover art, and why that matters'', November 6, 2013
/ref> Another work by Metzinger titled ''The Lamp'' (1917) was reproduced on the cover of ''JAMA'' on 27 September 2006 (Vol. 296 Issue 12). In 2011 ''Soldier at a Game of Chess'' was featured on the cover of ''The Art of JAMA: Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association'', Volume 3, with the 1993 essay by Southgate reproduced in the edition.M. Therese Southgate, ''The Art of JAMA: Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 3'', cover, OUP USA, Mar 17, 2011


Musée de Lodève

From 22 June to 3 November 2013 the , called Musée de Lodève (
Hérault Hérault (; oc, Erau, ) is a department of the region of Occitania, Southern France. Named after the Hérault River, its prefecture is Montpellier. It had a population of 1,175,623 in 2019.Du "Cubisme"'' by Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes, held at the
Musée de La Poste The Musée de La Poste (La Poste's Museum) is the museum of the French postal operator La Poste. It specialises in the postal history and philately of France. Opened in 1946, the museum has been located on two sites in Paris. The museum was clo ...
in Paris. Prior to the exhibition, the Musée de Lodève successfully launched a fund raising campaign to help finance the sending of Metzinger's ''Soldat jouant aux échecs'' (''Soldier at a Game of Chess'') from the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago to
Lodève Lodève (; oc, Lodeva ) is a commune in the département of Hérault, in the Occitanie region in southern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. The derivation of the city's name is from Gaulish ''Luteva'', composed of lut-, swamp, ...
.


Imaging/Imagining

For the occasion of an exhibition titled ''Imaging/Imagining the Human Body in Anatomical Representation'', March 25 – June 20, 2014 at the Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, ''Soldier at a Game of Chess'' was exhibited alongside an
X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10  picometers to 10  nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...
composite based on Metzinger's painting. The aim of the exhibition was to reveal the interdependence between representations of human anatomy through biomedicine's imaging technology and imaginings in the creative art's.Imaging/Imagining the Human Body in Anatomical Representation, The University of Chicago, Smart Museum of Art
''Imaging/Imagining: The Body as Art'', The Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, March 25 – June 22, 2014
The composite was produced by Adam Schwertner (fourth year medical student at the Pritzker School of Medicine, The University of Chicago), Stephen Thomas, MD (Assistant Professor of Radiology), and Brian Callender, MD (Assistant Professor of Medicine). "Digitally assembled radiographic scans" provided by the Department of Radiology at the University of Chicago Medical Center were superimposed on the painting. Organized by physicians, this exhibition gathered images of the body from a range of historical periods and considered "the extent to which they conform to established representational conventions or seem instead to reflect the artist's own observations or expressive goals". :"Other themes considered were the enduring role of figure drawing in academic art study; the relation between artistic and scientific abstraction; the depiction of bodily suffering in wartime; and what art and medicine have to offer each other in the pursuit of accuracy, humanity, and empathy, when it comes to representing the body". One year before Metzinger painted ''Soldier at a Game of Chess'', the German physicist
Max von Laue Max Theodor Felix von Laue (; 9 October 1879 – 24 April 1960) was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals. In addition to his scientific endeavors with cont ...
won the
Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...
in 1914 for his discovery of the
diffraction Diffraction is defined as the interference or bending of waves around the corners of an obstacle or through an aperture into the region of geometrical shadow of the obstacle/aperture. The diffracting object or aperture effectively becomes a s ...
of
X-rays An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 Picometre, picometers to 10 Nanometre, nanometers, corresponding to frequency, ...
by crystals.Hentschel, 1996, Appendix F, see entry for Max von Laue.Max von Laue Biography
– Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin
Ewald, P. P. (ed.
''50 Years of X-Ray Diffraction''
(Reprinted in pdf format for the IUCr XVIII Congress, Glasgow, Scotland, International Union of Crystallography). Ch. 4, pp. 37–42.
Of interest to the Cubists, in addition to new scientific discoveries such as Röntgen's
X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10  picometers to 10  nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...
s and Laue's X-ray diffraction, were Hertzian
electromagnetic radiation In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic field, electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, inf ...
and radio waves propagating through space, revealing the unseen; that which is beyond the grasp of
sensory perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
.Mark Antliff, Patricia Dee Leighten, ''Cubism and Culture'', Thames & Hudson, 2001
/ref> Linda Dalrymple Henderson, ''The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean geometry in Modern Art'', Princeton University Press, 1983 ''Imaging/Imagining'' was curated by Brian Callender, MD, and Mindy Schwartz, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine. Produced with the cooperation of the University of Chicago Arts, Science Initiative, it was presented by the Special Collections Research Center, Smart Museum of Art.


Centre Pompidou, Kunstmuseum Basel

''Le cubisme'', 17 October 2018 to 25 February 2019, Centre Pompidou, the first large-scale exhibition devoted to Cubism in France since 1973, with over 300 works on display. The 1973 exhibition, ''Les Cubistes'', included over 180 works and was held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux. The motivation for the Pompidou exhibition resides in broadening the scope of Cubism, usually focused on Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, to include the major contributions of the Salon Cubists, the Section d'Or, and others who participated in the over-all movement. The exhibition is held at
Kunstmuseum Basel The Kunstmuseum Basel houses the oldest public art collection in the world and is generally considered to be the most important museum of art in Switzerland. It is listed as a heritage site of national significance. Its lineage extends back to t ...
, from 31 March to 5 August 2019.''Le cubisme'', Centre Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, 17 October 2018 – 25 February 2019. Kunstmuseum Basel, 31 March – 5 August 2019
/ref>


See also

*
Chess in the arts Chess became a source of inspiration in the arts in literature soon after the spread of the game to the Arab World and Europe in the Middle Ages. The earliest works of art centered on the game are miniatures in medieval manuscripts, as well as p ...


References


External links


Jean Metzinger Catalogue Raisonné entry page for ''Soldier at a Game of Chess (Soldat jouant aux échecs)''

Agence Photographique de la Réunion des musées nationaux et du Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées


{{DEFAULTSORT:Soldier at a Game of Chess Paintings by Jean Metzinger 1915 paintings 20th-century portraits Chess paintings 1915 in chess