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Paintings Featuring Gambling – A History Of Famous Masterpieces

Considering just how much gambling was a social activity, then it's no surprise that so many artists used games of chance and their players as subject matter for their work. Throughout history, gambling has been depicted, along with all the social aspects that make the games so immersive and fun. many involve wine, women, and gambling games and offer an insight into the social conditions of the day. Unfortunately, because gambling has become more high-tech, it's lost this social aspect.

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Paintings Featuring Gambling

As we all know, gambling as a pastime is as old as the hills themselves. So it’s of no surprise that many artists have used gambling as a motif for their creative work. For various reasons, some of these works of art have gone on to become collectible in the world of art. So here at Jackpotfinder.com, we decided to have a closer look at some of the most popular and well-known paintings featuring gambling as their main focus.

Introduction: Gambling Paintings

In our present age of online gambling, it’s sometimes difficult to imagine that there were other, much more informal ways of having a flutter. Today, we generally think that it was the ancient Chinese who were playing cards and dice games. These then quickly spread all around the world thanks to the spice trade. During the 15th century, games with dice gave way to games with cards. Even though dice have been with us since before Roman times, this new form of gambling with playing cards, was in ascendance.

Paintings Featuring Gambling: Gambling Inspired Art.

In the beginning, cards were the reserve of the upper classes. But, as with all vices, that quickly changed as the working classes took to gambling jackpot games as a means of alleviating their lives of extreme hardship and poverty. It should come as no surprise then, that this activity, should find its way into the subject matter for all sorts of artists. Dice games in art have been well-represented. But the playing of cards, with its larger groups and scenes of joy and drunkenness, has always proved irresistible for the greatest painters. Let’s have a look through art history to find the most well-known paintings featuring gambling. Maybe the ancient roman and renaissance vibes will increase your efficiency and give you the right state of mind to win the jackpot online at a casino like 22Bet Casino.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio – The Cardsharps

Caravaggio represents the highest point of Baroque painting. The well-known painting, The Cardsharps, was painted in the 16th century in around 1594. It shows two boys playing cards. However, one of them cheekily has a card hidden behind his back. Also, there’s an older man looking on from behind the back of the innocent player. He appears to be signaling to the crafty boy opposite. It’s obvious that the two of them are in cahoots. The three of them are all entranced by the game, making it an enchanting work of art. Caravaggio’s use of light and dark contrast, or chiaroscuro, was incredibly influential to both fellow and future artists.

Paintings Featuring Gambling: Georges de La Tour – The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs

This was painted between 1626 and 1629 and is, without a doubt, a tribute to Caravaggio’s Cardsharps. The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs is a scene in which two women are playing cards with a man. The women appear distracted for a moment. The crafty man chooses this time to produce a couple of aces from his belt. We can also see a couple of a maidservant and another woman who are looking on with faces of suspicion and alarm. This wonderful painting shows us the players as living beings. In fact, the whole canvas is alive with the game. It’s also a contemporary morality play about the dangers of wine, women, and gambling. Georges de La Tour later went on to paint another picture in with card players in 1635, this time called “The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds”.

Jan Steen – Argument Over a Card Game

The next work belongs to the Dutch Golden Age and is one of the most celebrated paintings from that era. Argument Over a Card Game was painted during the second half of the 17th century. It perfectly captures the drama and emotion of a game of cards. Jan Steen shows us all types of people in society, from the highest to the lowest. In this painting, we can see a nobleman being restrained. He has a knife drawn, as does his opponent who remains seated at the card table. The air is filled with tension. Yet behind them, some peasant folk are laughing at the whole situation. Steen was famous for paintings that at first glance appear chaotic, but on closer inspection, let the details shine through.

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Paintings Featuring Gambling: Paul Cézanne – The Card Players

In the early 1890s’, Paul Cézanne painted a series of five paintings featuring gambling, with all depicting players playing cards. The famous French Post-Impressionist and father of Cubism painted scenes from quiet card games in darkened rooms to drunken noisy peasants playing cards in the tavern. The paintings are known for their typically muted colors. Being a Post-Impressionist, the detail is less unimportant to the artist, as he strives to capture both the light and the ambiance.

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge – Dogs Playing Poker

These are a series of instantly recognizable paintings featuring gambling. The sixteen pieces of art all depict dogs playing cards. They were painted by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge as a commission from the Brown and Bigelow advertising company in order to sell cigars. All the paintings have the dogs seated in what looks like a speak-easy, with its red walls and green felt card table. A different colored headlamp lights the table and the light fall-off into the darkness at the edge of the frame. In some, the dogs are sitting without clothing, and in others, fully clothed including hats. And in all paintings, there’s at least one dog with a cigar.

Paintings Featuring Gambling: Fernand Leger – Soldiers Playing Cards

Highly influenced by both Cézanne and Picasso, Fernand Leger was a late member of the Cubism movement. To that point, this painting has an almost mechanical feeling to it. This should come as no surprise as it was painted while Leger was in hospital after the First World War Battle of Verdun. Having witnessed firsthand the horrors of trench warfare, the painting has combined the elements of machines and welded them to the bodies of dislocated soldiers. The use of cold blues and blacks adds to the impression of a cold and murderous mechanical apparatus. The soldiers look more like robots than anything human. It’s hard not to see the cruel inhumanity within these forms. After all, they would have been witnessed firsthand by the artist during his days in the trenches.

Gambling Art Today

Unfortunately, the golden age of using gambling motifs for art has passed. On the whole, gambling is still considered an undesirable activity. In fact, it’s rarely used in modern artwork thanks to its continued social stigma. With the evolution of gambling from a joyful social situation in pubs and inns, it has now moved to the cold high-tech world of online casinos like 22Bet Casino. This has removed the social aspect of much of the gambling process. Thereby leaving many players gambling alone on their mobile phones. It’s interesting to note that so much of the subject of gambling no longer involves any social context, but rather solely concentrates on trying to increase your jackpot winning chances. To that end, we think the golden age of paintings featuring gambling is over.