"Les joueurs de cartes", Fernando Botero (1986)

Résumé du document

The following document is a canvas from Fernando Botero entitled The Cheater and achieved by the Colombian artist in 1986. The scene takes place in a room which seems to be the man's living room as we can notice his own portrait on the wall. There are 3 characters, a couple playing cards and a maid.

The scene is very gloomy, the background is dark and the room is only lighted by a bulb which gives a dark atmosphere to the scene. The room is closed, the key is still on the door which stressed the gloomy aspect. The all scene is basically based on gloomy and dark aspects almost rude but funny at the same time. On the right, there is a naked woman playing cards, she is losing, she holds a card in her hand and hands it to him.

Extraits

[...] Botero realizes here a perfect parody in a very naive style, all the main éléments of Delatour's canvas are présent but they are distorted : alcolhol is present on the canvas but it is a big bottle, the man is cheating but he is rude as he doesn't hide his cards behind his back but is sitting on them, the mai dis a witness, the spectator is also a witness as he sees the game of the cheater in both canvases and finally, the only missing élément is money, which is présent in Delatour's but absent here and replaced by sex as they are obviously playing stip poker. Finally, Botero distorts the characters, they are ugly, fat and caricatures of the old masterpiece, even the nice and famous chiaroscuro of Georges de le Tour is represented here by a gaudy light. As a conclusion, this canvas is very funny and colored but very naïve, the perspective is not respected. [...]

[...] "Les joueurs de cartes", Fernando Botero (1986) Botero, The Cheater The following document is a canvas from Fernando Botero entitled The Cheater and achieved by the Colombian artist in 1986. The scene takes place in a room which seems to be the man's living room as we can notice his own portrait on the wall. There are 3 characters, a couple playing cards and a maid. The scene is very gloomy, the background is dark and the room is only lighted by a bulb which gives a dark atmosphere to the scene. [...]

[...] In front of her, there is the main character of the canvas, the cheater. We can clearly know that he is cheating as he is sitting on cards. He is totally dresses, he is wearing a black suit, a hat, a green tie and is smoking a cigarette, he also shows his game to us. He is cheating and we understand that he is winning as he is fully dressed as opposed to the lady who is naked they are playing strip poker ! [...]