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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'') )〕 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,〔(L'Intransigeant, ''La Boîte aux Lettres'', 23 March 1915, p. 2 )〕 and was invalided out of service later that year.〔(Larousse, ''Dictionnaire de la peinture'', Jean Metzinger )〕 ''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 )〕 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.〔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, located on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.〔(Jean Metzinger, ''Soldier at a Game of Chess'' (''Soldat jouant aux échecs''), oil on canvas, 81.3 x 61 cm, Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago )〕 ==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. 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.〔〔Daniel Robbins, Joann Moser, ''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect'', The University of Iowa Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Trust, University of Washington Press 1985〕〔(Suzanne Phocas, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Photo (C) RMN-Grand Palais / Agence Bulloz )〕〔(Restauration du « Portrait de Jean Metzinger » par Suzanne Phocas, INP, Institut national de patrimoine, Médiathèque Numérique )〕 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, or trompe-l'œil—and the chessboard 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 )〕 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 ), ISBN 0300089643〕 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.〔(Albert Gleizes, 1914–15, ''Portrait of an Army Doctor'' (''Portrait d'un médecin militaire''), oil on canvas, 119.8 x 95.1 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York )〕 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〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Soldier at a Game of Chess」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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