Chessboard, Large Version (Original Painted Plaster) 1959

'My subjects belong to the world of metamorphosis… the fantastic creatures of an age that we are incapable of recognizing.' 🧌 The King, the Queen, the Bishop, the Knight, the Rook. The five core pieces in a game of chess are typically instantly recognisable. Their shapes conform to traditional styles, which have been established and reproduced since the earliest evolutions of chess. ♖ Chess dates back over 1.5 thousand years. it is often believed to have evolved from the Indian strategy board game known as chaturanga. The aristocratic and elite associations of chess are rooted in its popularity in medieval courts. 🏰 The French sculptor Germaine Richier (1902-1959) here rejects the traditional expectations that accompany the chess piece. Her five chess pieces, sculpted from plaster and metal in 1959, introduce an element of the whimsical into a game associated with precise rationality. 📐 Richier has selected vivid colours for her chess pieces, unlike the usual monotony of black and white. The brilliant colours are today faded, following a failed attempt at varnishing. Her figures are slender, almost emaciated, and represent distorted hybrids of human and animal forms. The artist playfully works with the legacies of absurdism and surrealism. The themes of magic, myth, and violence – all of which were favoured by the surrealists – conjure a sense of childhood imagination. The rough surfaces further communicate the idea of war, while the vast scale rejects realism. Here, the viewer is encouraged to absorb themselves into the realm of fantasy. Which chess piece is your favourite of the five? 🧙 Editor: Lucy Jude Grantham