J01

Cardplayers 1
Cezanne: "Cardplayers" ( 1890 - 92 )
Chagall: "Le Soldar Boit" ( 1912 )
Picasso: "Boy with Pipe" ( 1905 )
Lautree: "Yvette Salue le Publique" ( 1894 )

Cardplayers by Paul Cezanne (1839 - 1906) gives Chen a striking opportunity to shoot off fireworks. He can play as many combinations as there are in a deck of cards.

Retaining one cardplayer from Cezanne, Chen transforms two others, replacing one with a figure from Picasso's Blue Period and the other with an extravagant Cubist soldier by Chagall.

While the main background figure is Toulouse-Lautrec's Yvette Guilbert, other puzzling icons can be found.

If jokers are wild, the blue boy has just played four aces, which is the kind of hand that Chen plays all the time. ( by Lawrence Jeppson )
J02

Cardplayers 2
Cezanne: "Cardplayers" ( 1890 - 92 )
Picasso: "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" ( 1907 )
Gauguin: "The Yellow Christ" ( 1889 )

Although Chen does not list Van Gogh as an iconographical source in this painting, the player on the left is so reminiscent of a Van Gogh selfportrait, rotated and admittedly painted with a heavy, brusque hand, that that influence, if not parentage, cannot be denied.

As overseers of this scene, the sacrificial Christ and the Cubist young women (one seen only as a head) clash. The women are almost participant observers as they look over the shoulders of the Toulouse-Lautrec player, anxious to share his winning hand. Christ's eyes are closed to the game, which is superficial compared to his sacrifice. ( by Lawrence Jeppson )
J03

Cardplayers 3
Cezanne: "Cardplayers" ( 1890 - 92 )
Van Gogh: "Portrait of Patience Escalier, Shepherd in the Provence" ( 1888 )

When Chen arrived in Paris for the start of his twelve year stay, his first esthetic love was Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890). For years, the force of this influence was suppressed, but by the time Chen began his Spirit of Liberty Series, the smoldering ghost popped out to appear in many guises.

In this non-Liberty piece, Van Gogh dominates the picture with his portrait icon of the peasant and his brimming yellow straw hat.

The cardplayer on the right is an interesting reverse: a black figure which casts a golden shadow. A mysterious smoking animal sits on the left. Underneath the table, a black cat overpowers a white one.

The farmer in the center gambles with a far-away look in his eyes. He protects his cards, but his interest does not seem to be on the game. Where is it then? ( by Lawrence Jeppson )
J04 Cardplayers 4
Cezanne: Cardplayers", 1890-92
Leger: "The Mechanic", 1920. The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

These three cardplayers do not gamble for small stakes. The Leger figure on the right has one card showing: an ace. A red hammer and sickle tattoo on his biceps leaves no doubt as to this factory worker's symbolism.

The figure on the left is pure extravagant Chen: a circus tent full of colors and costume, a multifaceted icon of Uncle Sam, who is in turn another icon. Sam also plays a single ace.

On the back of the table a large strong figure is seen only as a solid yellow bulk in Mandarin shape. Truly this is China. China also has a single card. Lying on the table face down it waits to be played. Who can doubt that this will be a standoff! All will have to compromise. No clear winner or losers.

Well, cards are a better solution than guns.
The wallpaper, by the way, is Matisse. And the purple figure who watches impassively? Write your won scenario - send it to Chen and see if you got it right. ( by Lawrence Jeppson )
J05 Cardplayers at Night Cafe
Before moving to the Yellow House on September 18, 1888, Vincent van Gogh stayed at Cafe Alcazar for four months. A few days before leaving there, he stayed up three nights to paint, while sleeping during the day to finish "The Cafe at Night" (1888). In a letter to Theo, Vincent remarked that he felt the cafe was a "whole dirty joint" where "a person can ruin himself, go mad, commit crime." Vincent added, "I have attempted with the red and the green to express the terrible passion of man."

Indeed, the very effect of the complimentary red and green finds its expression in Van Gogh's "The Cafe at Night." The stained yellow gaslights along with the garish green ceiling and blood-red walls evoke an artificial hallucinatory atmosphere. Besides the few sad characters slumped in their chairs, an innkeeper in white stands near the billiard table. According to the clock on the wall, it is almost fifteen past midnight.

In Chen's version of the Night Cafe, the original interior scene remains the same, yet in the foreground, three cardplayers concentrate intently on their game. Two of them are the familiar players from Paul Cezanne's "Two Cardplayers" (1890-92), dressed in deep brown with the glare of the yellow gaslights upon them. Pablo Picasso's "Barcelona Harelquin" (1917) is the third cardplayer, elegantly occupying the center of the painting, and dressed in a costume with greenish-blue and pink diamond patterns.

In modern art, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Picasso are among the most famous. According to art history, Van Gogh created the background for the advancement of modern art, Cezanne laid the foundation upon it, and Picasso built his kingdom. This painting of Chen's reveals such a grand collaboration of these three masters. ( by T. F. and Julie Chen )
J06

Cardplayers with Mondrian Watching
Rouault: "The Old King" (1937)
Picasso: "Ambroise Vollard" (1910)
Michelangelo: "The Prophet Jeremie"
Window a la Mondrian

At the first glance, two people are playing cards, then we add an old man in the middle. T. F. Chen supposed there is a person watching the game. Who is he or she and where?

Mondrian stands there on the upper right corner, represented by a window in his style, a very distinguished style of him in horizontal and vertical black lines containing prime colors and the white.

Actually Chen employed the Mondrian elements for the consideration of the whole composition of the painting. These colors and lines not only enrich and brighten the picture but also bring to it an obvious sense of modernity. Even though Picasso's Cubistic "Vollard" and Rouault's Fauvistic "Old King" are revolutionary images in art history challenging the classic like Michelangelo's "Jeremie" on the Sistine Chapel, they look traditional comparing to the Mondrian design which envigorizes the whole painting while modernizing the work.

Here we see four persons in four different esthetic styles coexist and enpower each other in a manifestation of post-modernism using cardplaying as a pretext. (by T. F. Chen)
J07

Ladies Gathering

At first glance, this painting looks like a casual gathering of three interesting ladies playing cards, yet it actually reveals a historical "rencontre."

The lady on the left is from Renoir's "Lady with A Fan" (1906), depicting his friend Riviere's robust yet delicate daughter; the woman in the middle is evidently Madame Matisse, an austere yet sensitive portrait by her husband; and on the right-hand side is Picasso's "The Kept Woman" (1901), a courtesan with a necklace of gems, a painting deeply influenced by Toulouse Lautrec.

Sitting around a round table facing the sunshine, it seems that these three ladies have just finished playing cards, which are now open and scattered along the table, while Picasso's woman on the right tells a story, gesturing her hands to embellish her tale.

Historically speaking, the scene symbolizes a happy epoque in Paris' art scene: passing from Impressionism to Fauvism then to Cubism. A Japanese lady of Utamaro's style walks behind them, suggesting the Meiji Restoration of Japan, an effort towards modernism.

Artistically speaking, the radiant background in red unifies the four different characters in a warm, intimate atmosphere, resonant with the red strips of the tablecloth. The arrangement of the scattered cards are enriched by the still-life of flowers, fruit, and teapot. ( by T. F. and Julie Chen )

* * *

Renoir: "Lady with a Fan" (1906)
Picasso: "The Kept Woman (Courtesan with the Necklace of Germs)" (1901)
Matisse: "Portrait of Mme Matisse" (1913)
Cezanne: "Still Life with Putto" (1895)
Bounard: "Tea or the Blue Toque" (1917)
Japanese a la Utamaro

A table, round, square or rectangular on the foreground of a picture, then you can gather three or four persons to play cards together with or without bystanders behind them and you will have a conventional painting of cardplayers, including T. F. Chen's "Cardplayers Series". Yet Chen gathered famous men and women from art history instead of contemporary friends for the game.

Here Matisse's wife,, Picasso's courtesan and Renoir's model with a fan occupy the table. They need another partner for the play and Bounard's lady with blue toque appears at the lower right corner of the painting, almost invisible. It must be a summer afternoon, for both the Renoir's girl and the Japanese lady behind Mme Matisse hold each a fan while Picasso's courtesan exposes shoulders to cool down the heat. Mme Matisse dressed quite formally in dignity and grace, being probably the host of the occasion.

Cezanne is present, not by himself but by his apples on the table. The two bouquets might be brought by the guests from Renoir and Bounard. This may regard as a happy scenario of modernism to post-modernism by T. F. Chen, synthesizing Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and Orientalism etc. for a new dimension in art and conception. (by T. F. Chen)