Soldier at a Game of Chess (Le Soldat a la partie d' echecs)
Framed: 43 3/4 × 35 3/8 in. (111.1 × 89.9 cm)
Jean Metzinger was one of the original proponents of Cubism, the modernist art form which was formulated and refined in Paris between 1910 and 1914. He and other Cubist artists developed a revolutionary approach to representation that is characterized by the use of multiple points of view, angular planes of flat color, and intersecting line that at once divide and unite individual forms.
Metzinger created Soldier at a Game of Chess using this approach to deconstructing and simplifying form. Much like the soldier who calculates his moves on the chessboard, Metzinger saw art as a conceptual problem of forms, space, and geometric relationships, one informed by the ancient Greek mathematics of the "golden section." In a 1916 letter, Metzinger stated that "everything is number. The mind hates what cannot be measured...."
Possibly a self-portrait, this painting was one of only a few works he completed while in military service in World War I. Although here the subject is a soldier, Metzinger makes no reference to the chaos and carnage of the war. The work illustrates instead his continued preoccupation with pure form, space, and geometric relationships.
