Title: Soldat jouant aux échecs
Description: 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 architectonic 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.
Author(s): Jean Metzinger