Soldier at a Game of Chess
| Soldat jouant aux échecs | |
|---|---|
| English: Soldier at a Game of Chess | |
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|
| Artist | Jean Metzinger |
| Year | 1914-15 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 81.3 cm × 61 cm (32 in × 24 in) |
| Location | Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago. Gift of John L. Strauss, Jr. in memory of his father John L. Strauss, Accession No.: 1985.21, Chicago |
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), is a painting by the French artist Jean Metzinger. While serving as a medical orderly during World War I 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.
During the month of 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. Evidence found in a letter by Metzinger addressed to Léonce Rosenberg suggests the work was painted before his March 1915 mobilization, and possibly late 1914.
This distilled form of Cubism, 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 anatomy 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.
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, located on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.
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. 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's 1906 Portrait of Metzinger (Man with a Tulip); Suzanne Phocas, Portrait de Metzinger, 1926.
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