The Symbolism of the Pointing Lady

The mystery of the pointing woman!  How and why is she related to chess? 

Most often she is a Queen - either an actual historical queen posed with coyly pointing fingers and captured by many artists over the centuries, or she is a representation of a Queen who is not meant to represent an actual historical figure. 

However, the pointing figures are not restricted to females.  Chess historian Ricardo Calvo was fascinated by the artwork in the "Book of Chess" (part of a larger work put together on chess as well as many different types of board games and gambling games) authorized by King Alfonso of Castile, finalized about 1283 C.E. or thereabouts.  In many of the lavishly colored illustrations within the chess folios of that work, chessplayers and observers (Templars, Muslims, females) were often depicted with fingers pointed in certain ways.  I have many of those images saved but not stored on this computer.  I'll dig them out :) The positions of the pointed fingers seem, somehow, to be commenting on the game in question -- a position, perhaps?

And was something else being hinted at in these medieval images from Alfonso to de Cessolis?  Something that perhaps even they did not fully understand?

If a study of these pointing figures has been done, I'm not aware of it. I would like to know what other people think.

Personally, Goddesschess has long connected the Goddess (the great Mother Goddess, an archetype) with the earliest forms of games from the earliest times when "boards" were first scratched out in dirt and divination took place in one form or other.  We believe the association goes back to the very beginning of "games" - from the time when they weren't actually games but the last word (from the gods, as transmitted by a shaman or priest, male or female) sometimes a predictor of who lived and who died.

"Checkerboard" drawings go WAY back in time.  Just by way of example, a 3x3 colored "checkerboard" (red/buff/black) was found in the Lascaux cave complex in France and is about 17,000 years old.  It may (or may not) be closely associated with a bovine figure (probably an auroch) sort of hovering above it, with distinctly curved horns.  Those ancient auroch horns remind me of the horns/crescent moon headdress worn by the very old Egyptian Mother Goddess Hathor, who heralds from pre-dynastic times. 

Sometime closer to written history, people made an intellectual leap and internalized the connection between the divination (the Divine) that shamans and priests undertook on behalf of the community and a more personal revelatory experience in becoming a "player" on the board.  Sort of the ultimate "Game of Life!"  It was from this point, whenever it occured, that the development of ancient games - and more permanent forms of boards (carved from wood, etched into stone, painted in Egyptian tombs, etc.) - took off like a rocket and either spread through trade and cultural contacts or simultaneously developed in independent ancient enclaves of people who had no contact with the "outside world." 

Take a look at this image, scanned from Marilyn Yalom's excellent book "Birth of the Chess Queen" - this particular engraving is from de Cessolis' "Book of Chess," Italian edition, 1493:

Here we see a beautiful woman with abundant, curling hair, a substantial crown, garbed in an elegant and luxurious gown, sitting on what appears to be a substantial throne. 

The crown is perhaps the easiest of the symbols to decipher - it harks back to the "horn" of prehistoric days that was worn by figures of authority in the earliest societies.  Was it a representation of the power of the beast itself from which the horn had been taken, taking us back, way way back?  It must have been a fearsome prospect to kill a horned (or tusked) animal with clubs and stone-tipped spears (maybe not even those tools, in the case of our more distant ancestors).  A throwback to the "horn" symbolism that was especially prevalent in surviving artwork and seals recovered from digs around the ancient Middle East is yet worn today by Roman Catholic bishops in their distinctive headdress.  A similar headdress was worn by Pharaoh as part of the united crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.  Perhaps the oldest Egyptian depiction of this conical headdress from pre-dynastic Egypt is in the Narmer Palette. 

It also appears that she is wearing a sort of partial body armor covering her breasts, which is suspended over her chest on some kind of cord hung around her neck.  The design on the covering over the right breast appears to be a rosette (ancient Goddess symbol in Mesopotamia) and the covering over the left breast appears to have a serpent design (another ancient goddess symbol in many cultures).  She is pointing with what appears to be her index finger on her left hand.  Pointing at what, and for what reason?  What does she represent?  Her right hand seems to be deliberately placed square on her right thigh, and she doesn't have her legs squeezed closed in a virginal aspect judging from the position of her knees, as one might expect from the time period. 

Notice the puffed sleeves of the lady's gown and what appears to be ribbons or perhaps lace hanging down from the seams around the "puffs" on the upper shoulders of the lady's gown.  Does that remind you of anything, hmmm???  It should.  Take a look at the gold costume worn by the lady observer in the painting in the post from last night. 

To me, the tip off that this is an important goddess, perhaps an aspect of Fortuna herself?, is in the eight-point stylized "rosettes" that decorate either arm of the throne and march across the bas relief that shows on either side of the throne.  The number eight appears again in the pattern of "diamonds" (alternating larger and smaller) that decorate the uprights of the arms of the throne on either side of the lady. 

This "lady of Fortune" has an interesting look on her face.  She is sort of smiling, but is she, really?  Compare her face to the face of the figure in gold in the painting in the post from last night.  I see distinct similarities. 

Got to go now - other projects are demanding attention.  More on this subject will follow.

A Fascinating Chess Painting

Thanks to GM Alexandra Kosteniuk's chess blog for posting about this extremely interesting painting of a chess game in progress.  I was so impassioned by it (ahem) that I posted a comment about it at her blog, one that probably very few will ever read and those who do probably disagree with my sentiments expressed therein :)

LOL! 

I'm not interested in how the painting came to be used in an argument about "what is art."  The painting itself is what galvanized me.  Take a look:

GM Kosteniuk's blog describes the painting as follows:  It was painted around 1730 by James Northcote, a member of the British Royal Academy of Arts.

Northcote was amazingly prolific. Over 2,000 works are attributed to him. He painted historic and current news events, scenes from the Bible and classic literature, together with hundreds of portraits.

It was his animal paintings that attracted the most attention, though. Northcote made a fortune with his dramatic depictions of jungle cats, elephants, dogs and birds. This Northcote in the collection of the Worcester Art Museum is not, for the most part, about animals.

The Chess Players shows a pair of gentlemen pondering over an endgame. There's a boy standing behind one of the players, and a little dog sitting in the corner.

If you study the painting for a while, you'll notice a couple of interesting details. For one thing, the chess players clearly are not the center of attention. They're dressed in dark, sober colors, receding into the space of the painting.

By contrast, the boy appears in blazing gold. It almost looks as if he's under a spotlight. Yet he shows no interest in the chess game. His attention is directed away from the world of the painting. In fact, he appears to be staring directly at you, the viewer.

In his left hand is a sheet of paper, covered with undecipherable characters. His right finger appears to be pointing at something. But what? The sheet of paper? The man beside him?

And what is that dog doing there?

We'll probably never know. Everyone connected with the creation of this painting has been dead for generations.

After studying this painting for all of say, 60 seconds, I concluded that the "boy" is not a boy at all but a beautiful young woman from the early Regency Period in England with fashionably cropped hair (like Lady Lamb did, you remember - Caro Lamb?  She who created a fabulous Regency scandal by recklessly pursuing the famous poet George Gordon, Lord Byron [whom, some say, married his 14 year old niece - or was it his half-sister...]

I think the figure in gold is a young woman.  This is why:

CLOTHING:
Take a look at the person dressed in gold.  She is not wearing a cravat (neck-cloth/tie).  The two chessplayers are.

She has an abundance of lace about her throat, on her cuffs and also inset into her very puffy sleeves - neither of the men are wearing any such affectations.  Also, notice that her gown is buttoned up to the top of the throat, common for day-gown wear, whereas the men are both wearing Regency style open-throated overcoats so that their fine lawn shirts showed to advantage along with their under-vestments and intricately-tied cravats.  Contrast her outfit with the tight-fitted suit coats/over-coats worn by the two men playing chess, in darker, somber colors, and both of the chessplayers are wearing cravats/neckties.

FACIAL STRUCTURE AND MAKE-UP:
Notice the lady's face.  She has a blush on her cheeks (not blusher as in make-up as used today) - in contrast to the males.  This was an accepted way of depicting a woman's complexion in contrast to a male complexion.  She also has redder -- and fuller -- lips - in contrast to the males. During the period natural juice stains (strawberries, cherries) were often used by females to make their lips appear redder; and there was always the old stand-by -- biting one's lips to nearly the point of injury to get the blood flowing, just before going into company).  Note the chin, too.  She has a typical female chin that melts away into her throat (desirable in the period), whereas the male figures both have much more pronounced chins and jaw lines.  She also has much more delicately defined cheekbones than either of the chess players - and it's not just because she's supposed to be a boy.  However, I think the artist did intend her to be, ever so slightly, just a bit androgynous.  Just to tease the viewers of the day in the early 19th century (was she in drag???) and to even more so tease much less-educated in the nuances of the day viewers in our time! 

HAIRSTYLES:
She is wearing a top-knot.  Anyone who has ever seen "Pride and Prejudice" (the 1998 A&E version or the 1996 cinema version) knows whereof I speak.  This was not a male fashion of the period - certainly not for boys.  The men, in contrast, are wearing typical Regency period cropped and pommaded hair brushed forward toward the face in waves and curls, sometimes in conjunction with lush sideburns - having given up the Georgian-period white-powdered wigs! 

THE HAND STUFF:
What's that in the gold-clothed figure's left hand?  It's a fan - a lady's fan!  It looks rather awkward though - since the lady's left hand is also resting ever so softly on the shoulder of the younger chessplayer while holding the fan.  It apears that the fan is pressed between her bossom and  the young man's upper back.  It appears that she is leaning forward into him, almost as if she is pressing into him, and so the fan is trapped.

And that right hand with the pointing index finger?

More about my analysis of this painting and its symbolism tomorrow.  I't way past my bedtime now, I've got to scrub up and get some sleep.