Board Games through the lens of Art History
I am fascinated with art and its history. And recently I’ve invented a board game — The Great Collector —that is based on art historic theme as well.
While compelling artworks for the game I came across some paintings with card players on them. I thought it might be interesting to see boardgamers through the lens of history, captured by artists while playing.
Of course, most of the games in later centuries were not exactly «board games» as we think of this word now. They are better referred as card or tabletop card games. Nevertheless, they were the predecessor of this genre, so let’s have a look!
A small side note — I intentionally didn’t include chess and other games into this brief overview. Chess were widely popular even in ancient times and deserve a dedicated article on their own.
I was really surprised to learn that there are surviving pieces from the times of Ancient Egypt and Greece depicting people playing. Many times it were chess, but nevertheless — board games were already an important piece of fun in those times. Apart from images I included some pics of ancient boards and meeples (?) — how cool is that?
Renaissance times brought painting to a new level. Though genre scenes with people playing games were still quite rare — no wonder, History (religious, mythological, allegorical) subjects were the most popular those times in Southern Europe. Though Northern Renaissance was developing in its own pace and tradition, and genre scenes were starting to take dominant positions on the market.
Fun fact — I was trying to find at least some board gaming on this famous picture by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (see below), where he is said to depict at least 80 different games. But, alas, I failed :-) Maybe you would manage to? Here is the link to this painting in a very detailed resolution.
As I said, northern countries early on adopted this love for genre scenes of everyday life. And gaming (and gambling) could not escape artists’ attention. 17th century Dutch Golden Age painting was very rich for these pictures so popular among contemporary public.
Well, but the main artist stars of the genre in 17th century Netherlands were definitely Teniers brothers, David the Younger and Abraham. No surprise, that these kind of paintings by one or another are highly praised among collectors and cost substantial sums of money today.
Teniers brothers were also keen on singerie genre — when they painted monkeys in the place of people.
Check also this painting by Abraham — it’s not about gaming, but you’ll love it, I know.
And what about Italy and others? 17th century Baroque painting was less strict in terms of subjects presented and genre scenes gain popularity here as well. Probably the most famous painting «The Cardsharps» came out of the studio of well-known Caravaggio.
18th century Rococo ideals still favoured art of dolce far niente, leisure and playing. Even Goya painted such scenes.
And I also happily included this famous painting by Jean Siméon Chardin in The Great Collector board game — now kept in the National Gallery of Art in Washinglton D.C. it previously belonged to Empress Catherine the Great, one of our four main characters.
19th century art exploited the subject of card playing like nobody’s business.
We are getting closer to the 20th century. Interesting, that Post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne took his inspiration from his compatriots of early 17th century — Le Nain Brothers. Look, these three variating of Card Players by Cézanne came out of his study of the two paintings by Antoine and Mathieu Le Nain. Fascinating, right?
And let me finish on a quite a provocative note. This is the «Veterans Playing Cards» painting by one of the most harsh and ruthless German artists of 20th century — Otto Dix. How do you like it?
That was my brief card games in art history overview. Hope that was interesting and you enjoyed it. Would be glad to continue discussion, so let’s talk and play!
