Chapters
Chess and painting have been around for a long time. Chess and painting are 'done' all over the world. People are passionate about beautiful tableaux; people are passionate about chess. Could there be two, more complementary disciplines? As painting and chess have quite a lot in common - they both require discipline, focus and good visualisation skills, it shouldn't come as any surprise that chess features in many pieces of painted art. In fact, chess is the theme of so many paintings that Czech artist Peter Raabenstein compiled them all into a book, titled Chess in Art. It looks back over 800 years and features works from 700 different artists, along with commentary about how both the game of chess and the art of capturing it on canvas has changed through the centuries. As you are reading this article, no doubt in the hopes of discovering a few paintings that feature chess, you might now worry that you'll be reading forever because 800 years worth of paintings is a lot to read about. Thankfully, the monumental task of researching and detailing all of those chess-themed paintings is already done. Today, Superprof selects just a handful of them to talk about. Won't you let us know about your fav chess painting via the comments section? Thanks!
The Chess Players, Moritz Retzsch
This artist, whose full name is Friedrich August Moritz Retzsch, doesn't have near the high profile his work merits. He started his career as a painter, etcher and draughtsman at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1798, when he was 19 years old. He became a faculty member nearly 20 years later and earned his full professorship five years after that. Though there's little to document his rise as an artist, it's safe to say that he was sufficiently talented not only to stay at the academy for so long but also to attract the attention of the publisher and industrial pioneer FreiHerr Cotta. His publishing house contracted Mr Retzsch to paint 24 scenes from Goethe's Faust. This commission brought him fame and fortune, and he went on to other commissions, painting scenes from other plays, including works by Shakespeare. 
The Game of Chess, Sofonisba Anguissola
The most renowned Renaissance painters: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rafael... Sofonisba Anguissola? Indeed, Ms Anguissola was quite the trailblazer of her time. Born into a cash-poor yet noble family, she and her sisters were treated to a full education programme that included fine arts courses. Her teachers, recognising her talent, apprenticed her with several painters working in Cremona, where the family lived. In fact, her apprenticeship paved the way for other female painters' acceptance as art students. Sofonisba Anguissola had a remarkable career, including an early partnership with Michelangelo in Rome. As her reputation grew, she was offered commissions to paint noble families all over Italy. She even travelled to Spain, where she became King Phillip II's official court painter. In that era, it was highly unusual for a woman to be credited with artistic skills, let alone to become a court painter. Artemisia Gentileschi, another Italian painter (of the Baroque period), had also managed that feat, and mainly because her father was the court painter for England's King Charles I. You might say that Sofonisba Anguissola blazed the trail and Artemisia was right on her heels. But Ms Gentileschi didn't paint any chess tableaux; Ms Anguissola did. The piece depicts her sisters in a mischievous pretend game of chess. 
The Book of Games
El Libro de los Juegos, literally The Book of Games, was commissioned by the King of Castile, Galicia and León, Alfonso X, in the late 13th Century. Illustrations, some in colour, accompany the text so the reader can better understand dice games, backgammon and chess. The Libro covers more than 100 chess compositions, as well as chess variants. As the book examines the games from an astrological perspective, it is less a moralistic treatise than an exposure of the games' dual nature of luck and skill. The book itself is a work of art but the artwork it contains is downright breathtaking:
- Chess Problem #35 depicts two players mid-game, seated on a bench with the board in full view
- Four-Season Chess shows a chess set with its pieces divided into four, differently-coloured 'teams', each reflecting a season
- this chess game is played with dice, unlike the other chess games the manual depicts
- Knights Templar Playing Chess shows two such nights engaged in play; the Templar cross is prominently displayed
- Astronomical Chess: the board is designed in seven concentric circles and 12 radials to reflect the zodiac theme
Libro is considered one of the most important resources for historians, sociologists and those who study the nature and development of board games. Also, as it contains more than 150 images, it is a boon for art historians. 
Chess in Art
The idea of art encompasses far more than just paintings. Art is written works, both poetry and prose - and even comics; television shows and those featured on streaming services (The Queen's Gambit, if you please); films, music videos and even video games... At one time or another, through the centuries, chess has featured in all of them. There was even a theatre production, Chess, the Musical, that is loosely based on the Fischer/Spassky Match of the Century. But our topic is chess in famous paintings and no chess-themed painting is more celebrated than The Chess Players. If you know anything about chess in paintings, you might wonder which Chess Players tableau we mean. Besides the one presented at the start of this article, our quick research found five more thus-titled paintings, in three different languages. Surely, there are others. But some have much more provocative titles, such as Niccolo de Pietro's St Augustine and Alypius Receiving Ponticianus, a painting that shows Alypius apparently far more interested in his chess game than Augustine's conversion. Likewise, Hans Muelich's 1552 painting of Duke Albrecht V and his wife playing chess while others look on challenges the idea of a loving couple engaged in a stimulating pastime. After all, Duke Albrecht was Bavarian and his wife, Anna, was Austrian. Perhaps they represented warring territories through their chess game? Together and separately, chess and art have enjoyed longstanding veneration. And for good reason! Not only do these disciplines demand the same skills, they are often pursued by like-minded people.
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