The Card Players
Encyclopedia
The Card Players is a series of oil paintings from the French
Post-Impressionist artist
Paul Cézanne
. Painted during Cézanne's final period in the early 1890s, there are five paintings in the series. The versions vary in size and in the number of players depicted. Cézanne also completed numerous drawings and studies in preparation for The Card Players series.
Each painting depicts Provençal
peasants immersed in smoking their pipes and playing cards. The subjects, all male, are displayed as studious within their card playing, eyes cast downward, intent on the game at hand. Cézanne adapted a motif from 17th century Dutch
and French genre painting
which often depicted card games with rowdy, drunken gamblers in taverns, replacing them instead with stone-faced tradesmen in a more simplified setting. Whereas previous paintings of the genre had illustrated heightened moments of drama, Cézanne's portraits have been noted for their lack of drama, narrative, and conventional characterization. Other than an unused wine bottle in the two-player versions, there is an absence of drink and money, which were prominent fixtures of the 17th century genre. A painting by one of the Le Nain
brothers depicting card players at a museum in Aix-en-Provence
, near the artist's residence, is widely believed to have been an inspiration for Cézanne.
The models for the paintings were local farmhands, some of whom worked on the Cézanne family estate, the Jas de Bouffan. Each scene is depicted as one of quiet, still concentration; the men look down at their cards rather than each other, perhaps the cards being their sole means of communication outside of work. One critic described the scenes as "human still life
", while another speculated the men's intense focus on their game mirrors that of the painter's absorption in his art.
The largest version, painted between the years 1890-1892, is the most complex, with five figures on a 134.6 x 180.3 cm (53 × 71 in) canvas. It features three card players at the forefront, seated in a semi-circle at a table, with two spectators behind. On the right side of the painting, seated behind the second man and to the right of the third, is a boy, eyes cast downward, also a fixed spectator of the game. Further back, on the left side between the first and second player is a man standing, back to the wall, smoking a pipe and presumably awaiting his turn at the table. It has been speculated Cézanne added the standing man to provide depth to the painting, as well as to draw the eye to the upper portion of the canvas.
As with the other versions, it displays a suppressed storytelling of peasant men in loose-fitting garments with natural poses focused entirely on their game. Writer Nicholas Wadley described a "tension in opposites", in which elements such as shifts of color, light and shadow, shape of hat, and crease of cloth create a story of confrontation through opposition. Others have described an "alienation" displayed in the series to be most pronounced in this version.
The painting is owned and displayed by the Barnes Foundation museum in Merion, Pennsylvania
.
A more condensed version of this painting with four figures, long thought to be the second version of The Card Players, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York
. At 65.4 x 81.9 cm (25 3/4 x 32 1/4 in), it is less than half the size of the Barnes painting. Here the composition remains virtually the same, minus the boy, with viewers' perspective slightly closer to the game, but with less space between the figures. In the previous painting, the center player as well as the boy were hatless, whereas this version has all the men hatted. Also gone are the shelf to the left with vase and lower half of a picture frame in the center of the wall, leaving only the four pipes and hanging cloth to join the smoking man behind the card players. The painting is brighter, with less focus on blue tones, than the larger version.
X-ray
and infrared studies of this version of The Card Players have shown layers of "speculative" graphite underdrawing
, as well as heavy layers of worked oil paint, possibly suggesting it was the preliminary of Cézanne's two largest versions of the series, rather than the second version as historically believed. The underdrawing has also led analysts to believe Cézanne had difficulty transferring the men, previously painted individually in studies, onto one canvas.
It has been speculated Cézanne solved this "spacial conundrum" in the final three versions of The Card Players, by eliminating spectators as well as any other "unnecessary detail" and displaying only the "absolute essentials": two players immersed in their game. The scene has been described as balanced but asymmetrical, as well as naturally symmetrical with the two players being each other's "partner in an agreed opposition". The man on the left is smoking a pipe, wearing a tophat with a downcast brim, in darker, more formal clothing, seated upright; the man to the right is pipeless, in a shorter hat with upcast brim, lighter, more loosely fit clothing, and hunched over the table. Even cards themselves are contrasting light and dark hues. In each of the two-player paintings, a sole wine bottle rests in the mid-part of the table, said to represent a dividing line between the two participants as well as the center of the painting's "symmetrical balance".
Of the three versions, perhaps the most well-known and most often published is in the Musée d'Orsay
in Paris. It is also the smallest at 47.5 x 57 cm (17 3/4 x 22 1/2 in). The Orsay painting has been described by art historian Meyer Schapiro
as "the most monumental and also the most refined" of the versions, with the shapes being simpler but more varied in their relationships. It is the most sparsely painted, and generally considered the last of the Card Players series.
There is a shift of axis to the scene, in which the player to the left is more completely in the picture, chair included, with the appearance of being nearer to us. His partner to the right is cut off from the scene at his back, and the table is displayed at an angle to the plane. Critics have described a "deception of restraint" in Cézanne's use of color; gradated area of thinly applied, "priming" color used for solid forms and their appearance of structure is met with lilac and green used to "liven" the canvas, as well as the bright, deep color used on the lower half for the tablecloth. This version of the series was also part of a high-profile theft of eight Cézanne paintings from a traveling show at Aix in August 1961. The most valuable of the stolen works, The Card Players was released as a four-color postage stamp
by the French government in recognition of the loss, all of which were recovered after a paid ransom several months later.
The other two-player paintings are in the Courtauld Institute of Art
in London and the private collection of Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos.
s of the paintings as well as further analysis of preparatory sketches and studies has led some scholars to believe Cezanne used both the studies and the smaller versions of The Card Players to prepare for the larger canvases.
Over a dozen initial sketches and painted studies of local farmworkers were made by Cézanne in preparation for the final paintings. It has been speculated his models sat for the studies rather than the finished works themselves, and the painter possibly sketched preliminary work in an Aix cafe.
Some of the studies have been well regarded as stand-alone works of their own volition, particularly the accompaniment piece Man with a Pipe, displayed alongside The Card Players at the Courtauld Gallery in London. The former, along with two similar paintings of smokers undertaken in the same period, are considered by many to be some of Cézanne's most masterful portraits.
It was described as the first exhibition devoted to the series as well as the largest collection of Cézanne's Card Players paintings to ever be exhibited together. The exhibition included the paintings owned by the Courtauld, Metropolitan, and Musée d'Orsay. The versions at the Barnes Foundation and in a private collection were displayed as prints, due to the Barnes' policy of not lending and the private collector declining to release the work. The mini-series of men smoking pipes sometimes referred to as The Smokers was also included with over a dozen other studies and sketches, however a legal dispute also prevented the Hermitage Museum
's version of Man with a Pipe from traveling to New York.
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
Post-Impressionist artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
. Painted during Cézanne's final period in the early 1890s, there are five paintings in the series. The versions vary in size and in the number of players depicted. Cézanne also completed numerous drawings and studies in preparation for The Card Players series.
Overview
The series is considered by critics to be a cornerstone of Cézanne's work during the early-to-mid 1890s period, as well as a "prelude" to his final years, when he painted some of his most acclaimed work.Each painting depicts Provençal
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
peasants immersed in smoking their pipes and playing cards. The subjects, all male, are displayed as studious within their card playing, eyes cast downward, intent on the game at hand. Cézanne adapted a motif from 17th century Dutch
Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history generally spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade,...
and French genre painting
Genre painting
Genre works, also called genre scenes or genre views, are pictorial representations in any of various media that represent scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or...
which often depicted card games with rowdy, drunken gamblers in taverns, replacing them instead with stone-faced tradesmen in a more simplified setting. Whereas previous paintings of the genre had illustrated heightened moments of drama, Cézanne's portraits have been noted for their lack of drama, narrative, and conventional characterization. Other than an unused wine bottle in the two-player versions, there is an absence of drink and money, which were prominent fixtures of the 17th century genre. A painting by one of the Le Nain
Le Nain
The three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17th-century France: Antoine Le Nain , Louis Le Nain , and Mathieu Le Nain...
brothers depicting card players at a museum in Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence
Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
, near the artist's residence, is widely believed to have been an inspiration for Cézanne.
The models for the paintings were local farmhands, some of whom worked on the Cézanne family estate, the Jas de Bouffan. Each scene is depicted as one of quiet, still concentration; the men look down at their cards rather than each other, perhaps the cards being their sole means of communication outside of work. One critic described the scenes as "human still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
", while another speculated the men's intense focus on their game mirrors that of the painter's absorption in his art.
Paintings
While there are five total paintings of card players, the final three painted by Cézanne were similar in composition and number of players (two), causing them to sometimes be grouped together as one version. The exact dates of the paintings are not certain, but it is long believed Cézanne began with larger canvases and pared down in size with successive versions, though research in recent years has cast doubt on that belief.The largest version, painted between the years 1890-1892, is the most complex, with five figures on a 134.6 x 180.3 cm (53 × 71 in) canvas. It features three card players at the forefront, seated in a semi-circle at a table, with two spectators behind. On the right side of the painting, seated behind the second man and to the right of the third, is a boy, eyes cast downward, also a fixed spectator of the game. Further back, on the left side between the first and second player is a man standing, back to the wall, smoking a pipe and presumably awaiting his turn at the table. It has been speculated Cézanne added the standing man to provide depth to the painting, as well as to draw the eye to the upper portion of the canvas.
As with the other versions, it displays a suppressed storytelling of peasant men in loose-fitting garments with natural poses focused entirely on their game. Writer Nicholas Wadley described a "tension in opposites", in which elements such as shifts of color, light and shadow, shape of hat, and crease of cloth create a story of confrontation through opposition. Others have described an "alienation" displayed in the series to be most pronounced in this version.
The painting is owned and displayed by the Barnes Foundation museum in Merion, Pennsylvania
Merion, Pennsylvania
Merion Station is an unincorporated community in Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is contiguous to Philadelphia and is also bordered by Wynnewood, Narberth, and Bala Cynwyd...
.
A more condensed version of this painting with four figures, long thought to be the second version of The Card Players, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. At 65.4 x 81.9 cm (25 3/4 x 32 1/4 in), it is less than half the size of the Barnes painting. Here the composition remains virtually the same, minus the boy, with viewers' perspective slightly closer to the game, but with less space between the figures. In the previous painting, the center player as well as the boy were hatless, whereas this version has all the men hatted. Also gone are the shelf to the left with vase and lower half of a picture frame in the center of the wall, leaving only the four pipes and hanging cloth to join the smoking man behind the card players. The painting is brighter, with less focus on blue tones, than the larger version.
X-ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
and infrared studies of this version of The Card Players have shown layers of "speculative" graphite underdrawing
Underdrawing
Underdrawing is the drawing done on a painting ground before paint is applied, for example, an imprimatura or an underpainting. Underdrawing was used extensively by 15th century painters like Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden. These artists "underdrew" with a brush, using hatching strokes for...
, as well as heavy layers of worked oil paint, possibly suggesting it was the preliminary of Cézanne's two largest versions of the series, rather than the second version as historically believed. The underdrawing has also led analysts to believe Cézanne had difficulty transferring the men, previously painted individually in studies, onto one canvas.
It has been speculated Cézanne solved this "spacial conundrum" in the final three versions of The Card Players, by eliminating spectators as well as any other "unnecessary detail" and displaying only the "absolute essentials": two players immersed in their game. The scene has been described as balanced but asymmetrical, as well as naturally symmetrical with the two players being each other's "partner in an agreed opposition". The man on the left is smoking a pipe, wearing a tophat with a downcast brim, in darker, more formal clothing, seated upright; the man to the right is pipeless, in a shorter hat with upcast brim, lighter, more loosely fit clothing, and hunched over the table. Even cards themselves are contrasting light and dark hues. In each of the two-player paintings, a sole wine bottle rests in the mid-part of the table, said to represent a dividing line between the two participants as well as the center of the painting's "symmetrical balance".
Of the three versions, perhaps the most well-known and most often published is in the Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
in Paris. It is also the smallest at 47.5 x 57 cm (17 3/4 x 22 1/2 in). The Orsay painting has been described by art historian Meyer Schapiro
Meyer Schapiro
Meyer Schapiro was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for forging new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art...
as "the most monumental and also the most refined" of the versions, with the shapes being simpler but more varied in their relationships. It is the most sparsely painted, and generally considered the last of the Card Players series.
There is a shift of axis to the scene, in which the player to the left is more completely in the picture, chair included, with the appearance of being nearer to us. His partner to the right is cut off from the scene at his back, and the table is displayed at an angle to the plane. Critics have described a "deception of restraint" in Cézanne's use of color; gradated area of thinly applied, "priming" color used for solid forms and their appearance of structure is met with lilac and green used to "liven" the canvas, as well as the bright, deep color used on the lower half for the tablecloth. This version of the series was also part of a high-profile theft of eight Cézanne paintings from a traveling show at Aix in August 1961. The most valuable of the stolen works, The Card Players was released as a four-color postage stamp
Commemorative stamp
A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event or person. The subject of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike definitive stamps which normally depict the subject along with the...
by the French government in recognition of the loss, all of which were recovered after a paid ransom several months later.
The other two-player paintings are in the Courtauld Institute of Art
Courtauld Institute of Art
The Courtauld Institute of Art is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art. The Courtauld is one of the premier centres for the teaching of art history in the world; it was the only History of Art department in the UK to be awarded a top...
in London and the private collection of Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos.
Studies and sketches
Cézanne created a substantial number of studies and preparatory drawings for The Card Players series. While it had long been believed he began the series with the largest paintings and subsequently worked smaller, 21st century x-rayX-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
s of the paintings as well as further analysis of preparatory sketches and studies has led some scholars to believe Cezanne used both the studies and the smaller versions of The Card Players to prepare for the larger canvases.
Over a dozen initial sketches and painted studies of local farmworkers were made by Cézanne in preparation for the final paintings. It has been speculated his models sat for the studies rather than the finished works themselves, and the painter possibly sketched preliminary work in an Aix cafe.
Some of the studies have been well regarded as stand-alone works of their own volition, particularly the accompaniment piece Man with a Pipe, displayed alongside The Card Players at the Courtauld Gallery in London. The former, along with two similar paintings of smokers undertaken in the same period, are considered by many to be some of Cézanne's most masterful portraits.
Exhibitions
In 2010-11, a joint exhibition was curated by the Courtauld Gallery in London and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to display The Card Players paintings, early studies and sketches of the series, and accompanying works. The exhibition ran in London from October 21, 2010 to January 16, 2011 and in New York from February 9, 2011 to May 8, 2011.It was described as the first exhibition devoted to the series as well as the largest collection of Cézanne's Card Players paintings to ever be exhibited together. The exhibition included the paintings owned by the Courtauld, Metropolitan, and Musée d'Orsay. The versions at the Barnes Foundation and in a private collection were displayed as prints, due to the Barnes' policy of not lending and the private collector declining to release the work. The mini-series of men smoking pipes sometimes referred to as The Smokers was also included with over a dozen other studies and sketches, however a legal dispute also prevented the Hermitage Museum
Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
's version of Man with a Pipe from traveling to New York.