Is Chess Art?

Popular film critic Roger Ebert has decided to write a long statement defending his pronouncement long ago that "Video games can never be art."  I really don't care what he says about video games: it's what he says about chess in his essay that bothers me.  As he writes: "chess, football, baseball and even mah jong cannot be art, however elegant their rules."  He grants that if we follow Wikipedia's definition of art as "the process of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions," then "as a chess player I might argue that my game fits the definition."  But he refuses to accept it and refuses even to acknowledge the long history of statements about how chess can be experienced as art.  Several readers have taken him to task for this.  I thought I would just mention some quotes.  The failure to at least acknowledge a history of argument comparing chess to art shows willful ignorance on his part.

"Chess, first of all, is art." -- Mikhail Tal

"Beauty in chess is closer to beauty in poetry; the chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes throughts, and these throughts, although making a visual design on the chessboard, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem. Actually, I believe that every chess player experiences a mixture of two aesthetic pleasures: first, the abstract image akin to the poetic idea of writing; secondly, the sensuous pleasure of the ideographic execution of that image on the chessboard. From my close contact with artists and chess players, I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists." -- Marcel Duchamp, August 30, 1952 address to the New York State Chess Association

 

"Chess is in its essence a game, in its form an art, and in its execution a science." -- Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa

"Great chess games are breathtaking works of art." -- Stuart Rachels

"Chess resembles writing, painting and music in being an obsessional mental activity preoccupied with exploring tension and complication to resolve them to triumphant harmony."  -- Andrew Waterman, The Poetry of Chess

Chess Playing New Jersey Devil

A chessplaying New Jersey Devil from Paranominal's Cryptozoology.  Why is it that the devil is always up for a game?

Paper Chess Set

Paper Chess by Kell Black would make the perfect holiday gift for a crafty chess-playing friend or teen. There have been a couple interviews (see "APSU Artist Releases Book of Paper Chess Pieces" and "APSU Professor Engineers Paper Chess Set for Ivy Press in England") with designer Black, an art professor at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, who talks about how he fell in love with paper foldouts when he built a paper medieval village with his father at the age of five. The difficulty with chess (as Stean and Emms will tell you) is keeping it simple:

“Any designer, any artist, any musician will tell you it’s always easy to add stuff,” [Black] said. “What’s really hard is to take away, to make it as simple as possible. That’s the challenge and that’s what made it so fun.”

For those looking for more of a challenge, there is a nice instruction set available online for making a "Birdbase Chess Set" (PDF) by Joseph Wu, who has also produced a YouTube video showing you how he can make it in 30 seconds (so long as you speed up the video tape!)

Chess Skill That's Stronger than Steel

According to Gareth Williams's book Master Pieces: The Architecture of Chess, in the 18th Century "the turning of a chess set was an important part of an apprentice turner's course" -- so important that "a seal of the Hanover Turners' Guild...displays a chess knight, with a double headed horse as its symbol" (65). The manufacturers of automated metal lathes are doing the same thing as lathe turners in the 18th Century: demonstrating their skills by making chess pieces. There are several videos on YouTube (especially the one above) that most chess players will find hypnotic.

• Turning a Chess Rook by Glacern Machine Tools
• SolidCAM Chess Video
• CNC Chess Piece - Queen
• CNC Lathe -- Pawn

Paul Morphy vs. Mephistopheles

Retzsch's Die Schachspieler (1831)

In Die Schachspieler and the Morphy Anecdote, Part I and Part II, Sarah Beth Cohen reproduces multiple interpretations of a fascinating painting by Friedrich Moritz August Retzsch depicting the familiar theme of a chess game with the devil. She then goes on to reproduce the interesting Paul Morphy anecdote that became attached to that painting by a series of articles in the Columbia Chess Chronicle (which can be found online at Google Books). According to the "Anecdote of Morphy" (August 18, 1888, p. 60), the American chess champion joined a dinner party at a home in Richmond, Virginia, where a copy of Retzch's painting hung on the wall. After studying the painting for some time, Morphy said that he could "take the young man's game and win," which he proceeded to prove several times to the other dinner guests in turn. The story provoked some controversy in the Chronicle, and Ms. Cohen reproduces the letter exchange that followed in its pages. She neglects to include, however, the letter of Charles Gilberg (see below, from September 22, 1888) which purports to reproduce the game position that Morphy defended.


Of course, a comparison of the position with the painting should prove to anyone that Gilberg's rendition is completely incorrect. Just for starters, he does not notice that all of the devil's remaining pieces stand on dark squares (since he represents the dark side, of course). In fact, the one thing he could get right about the position -- which is the situation of the pieces -- he gets completely wrong.

However, while it seems possible to reconstruct the situation of the pieces (see below), a close examination of the pieces themselves quickly reveals that no definitive statement can be made about the chess pieces they represent. After all, the pieces are intended to depict a battle between the seven (or eight) virtues and the seven deadly sins, and chess seems to function in the painting mostly as a metaphor. However, in my opinion, the fact that no definitive statement can be made about the chess pieces depicted only lends credence to the "Anecdote of Morphy," since it seems entirely possible to construct a chess position (and probably several) that would be quite competitive or even winning for White using the situation of the forces given in the painting.

Unfortunately, the only view of the painting I have available is the one online at ArtFact that Ms. Cohen references and reproduces with her article. But even from this rather limited view I think I can reconstruct the situation:

The situation of the pieces

We can say only a few things definitively, however, about the pieces depicted:

• the board is set up correctly, with a light square on the right;
• the small pieces are clearly intended to represent pawns;
• since all of the Black pieces remaining stand on dark squares, the piece that the young man has captured must be the light-squared Bishop;
• and the painting does not depict a full set of pieces and pawns for both sides.

Here is one possible way of rendering the position on a chessboard:

Morphy vs. Mephistopheles?

I think from that position, Morphy would have offered his challengers a sporting chance (Fritz thinks Black still has a slight edge after 1.Qxd4+). And he might even have held that "Modern Mephistopheles," the chess computer, to a draw. Below is one possible continuation (or see PGN) with best play for Black--something Morphy would certainly not have encountered in Richmond.

King Kong Chess Set

You can get an impressive King Kong Deluxe Chess Set for $129.99 from Toynk. Based on the classic 1933 film, it contrasts an art deco city with a savage island (ruled by Kong as its King.) Daryl has great pictures from his collection (hope he didn't buy it at $475.) I'd be tempted to invent a special chess variation to match the set (along the lines of Dracula Chess), in which the object of the game is for black to capture Ann Darrow and white to rescue her. Oh, wait, isn't that Donkey Kong?

Chess in the Dark with LED Chess Sets

I came across this LED Chess Set from Cool Stuff Express for $89.99 and another from Hi-Tec Art for $39.99. I should have recognized that such products were inevitable when I read about how to make your own LED chess set (using an inexpensive set made of glass), as well as a "simple version" of the same concept that supposedly takes only four hours to build. Pretty cool for playing chess in the dark, if you have either the money or the time.

Hitler vs. Lenin?

In "Based on Life or Fantasy, a Picture Goes to Auction" (The New York Times, September 30, 2009), Dylan Loeb McClain presents a balanced report on an etching meant to depict a chess match between Hitler and Lenin. Let readers and potential buyers be the judge of its authenticity. I just don't know who would want to own a picture of either man, let alone one that shows both. (See also items from ChessBase and from Edward Winter).

Chessmen from Nuts and Bolts

The Make Magazine weblog points us to Julia Suits's pictures of a set of chessmen she and her kids created from hardware store nuts and bolts (and black spray paint). Fun.

LEGO Star Wars Chess

Those three terms ("LEGO," "Star Wars," and "Chess"), strung together, form a powerful phrase for many a young boy. In fact, my six-year-old son started putting those three terms together about a year ago, and over the summer he worked on a little project of his own that he called by that very phrase. Then he realized he did not have nearly enough pieces to finish it, and that dad was not about to run out to the toy store and buy him the rest (especially after he had dismantled several expensive models that we spent hours working on in order to start his project). When he sees this picture, which I have not yet shown him, he is going to go through an emotional roller coaster. First he is going to be disappointed that someone beat him to the punch, then he is going to get excited about the prospect of buying it, and then he is going to be disappointed again to learn it is not yet for sale (thank God).

The set was designed by Brandon Griffith, who has lots more pictures of it at his Flickr page. According to the page, "This is a Star Wars: A New Hope Lego Chess set. It was built in April and May of 2009 and debuted at Star Wars Days at Legoland California." Pretty cool.

Chess in Art Resources

The excellent Streatham & Brixton Chess Club weblog today offers up a thorough bibliography of Chess in Art Resources, which concludes their wonderful series on the subject (see the index of posts on that topic and their collection of images with comments). The one major resource they overlook is Sarah Beth Cohen's excellent article on Chess: Romance, Love and Sex, which offers up a wonderful collection of erotic chess art mostly drawn from popular sources. I have also had a few posts on the topic, including one on "Marketing Chess as Art."

Here is a text about the world...

Video artist Diana Thater's installation Here is a text about the world... at the David Zwirner Gallery (525 W 19th St. in New York City) is featured in this weekend's New York Times (see "The Ritual of Chess, a Decoder of Life" by Dorothy Spears). Only a small portion of the installation shows chess, but it might be a nice "chess tourism" stop in the Village through February 9, 2008. Thater has done at least one other video installation that featured chess, titled "Off with their heads" (in Munich, Germany). More information about visiting the show can be found at the Chelsea Galleries website.