I used to hear people say that most native New Yorkers have never been to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building, but I never thought I'd be included in that category. It's not that I don't want to go to see Lady Liberty, I'm kind of a history buff so I would love to check it out, but so far, a visit to the top of the torch has never been in the cards for me. Other family members and friends have had day outings and visited the Statue, but for some reason I've never made the trek there with them. There have been school field trips there, but unfortunately not in my class. I've been to all of these, but it got me thinking, why have I never been to one of the cities major attractions, the Statue of Liberty? The Empire State Building is where my wife and I used to call home almost every Saturday night when we were dating.
![ben apgar cat in the kettle ben apgar cat in the kettle](https://townsquare.media/site/137/files/2021/11/attachment-david-1995.jpg)
Although the painting was dedicated to Benjamin, the title "The Chess Players" curiously leaves Eakins' father out of the narrative of the picture.Yes I've been to many of the major attractions the museum's, the clubs, I've taken the Circle Line Cruise, went to the top of the old World Trade Center, crashed a wedding at the New York Hilton, I've even lost $20 dollars playing three card monti on the street (young stupid me), and of course the Empire State Building.
![ben apgar cat in the kettle ben apgar cat in the kettle](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52f12a3de4b0e9379099ccd5/1615184969229-33MV04J9LWBUM8TFWC2Q/nature-2.jpg)
Yet Eakins has obscured his father's face by shadow and by the angle at which he looks down upon the game. Elevating his father's status, he places Benjamin centrally, with the vanishing point behind Benjamin's head. While Eakins has humbled himself before his father in signing the painting only by reference to being Benjamin's son, he also presents his father ambivalently. In this light it is not coincidental that the painting was made on wood panel rather than canvas. In the way that his father Benjamin is placed in opposition to Eakins the painter, the two may be envisioned as playing out a psychological "conflict" across the other axis of the chess board. The younger chess player's attempt to kill the older player's king is analogous to the Oedipal complex. Īuthor Martin Berger has analyzed the content of the painting in detail, finding it an evocation of the passage of time and ascribing it a highly personal meaning in Eakins' life. Michael Clapper of Franklin & Marshall College has noted, "Eakins’s choice of and his knowledgeable treatment of it suggest that he was familiar with and interested in the game, though there is little direct evidence of it apart from the painting." Īrt historian Akela Reason proposes that the painting is a tribute to a number of the artist's father-figures: Holmes probably was Eakins's first art teacher Gardel was his French teacher Benjamin Eakins was his literal father and Jean-Léon Gérôme, his master at the École des Beaux-Arts, is represented by a print of Ave Caesar Morituri te Salutant, over the clock. '76"-"the son of Benjamin Eakins painted this"-in small letters on the drawer of the table. Eakins painted The Chess Players for his father, and signed the painting in Latin, "BENJAMINI. Holmes, the younger player, seems to be winning the match, as he has taken the queen of his opponent (the top of which pokes out of the table's drawer), and his own black queen is well-positioned in the centre of the board.
![ben apgar cat in the kettle ben apgar cat in the kettle](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/WwwAAOSwVL1WFWSc/s-l300.jpg)
The game is well in progress, as many pieces have been removed from the board. The men are in a dark, wood-panelled Victorian parlour with a quality of light suggesting late afternoon. The two players are Bertrand Gardel (at left), an elderly French teacher, and the somewhat younger George Holmes, a painter. It is a small oil on wood panel depicting Eakins' father Benjamin observing a chess match. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Chess Players is an 1876 genre painting by Thomas Eakins, Goodrich catalogue #96.
![ben apgar cat in the kettle ben apgar cat in the kettle](https://img.beteve.cat/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/jet-011221.jpg)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City