Chess painting by Mr. Arrabal
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Chess Painting
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Chess painting by Mr. Arrabal
Very cool painting!
Which one is the telekenetic?
Very cool Suzy Q. The only one I can’t figure out is between Spassky and Capablanca. I am sure I will kick myself. Which Polgar sister is on the wall?
First row: Tal, Capa, Laskar, Stinitz. Second row: Spassky, ??, Marshall?
Second row:Spassky,Fernando Arrabal,Alekhine
If it’s btm, it’s a weak zugzwang: White is going to win anyway but a bN move allows 2.Nd6#.
The composition may be a clever assemblage of heads from various places but it doesn’t work as a painting for me.
There is not focal point – everyone looking in different directions, and the depiction of the light seems wrong. Looks like a strong floodlight, unknown at ‘that’ time, is shining on the scene.
Also, the small wine glasses are dissimilar when I suspect they are meant to be out of the same box.
Between Spassky and Alekhine, it looks like Freddy Friedel to me… always hanging out with the top players.
Who is fifth in the first row?
Fifth in the front row looks like Fischer.
The fact that it all doesn’t seem to blend together is the cool part!
They are all from different times and these cannot be compared…
Nice symbolic!
The Polgar in the picture is Judit 🙂
I just realized that the patch on the jacket has their manes, but I can’t read most of them. That must be the old Fischer. Picutres of old Tal and Spassky too.)
More information on the painting appears in the original item at ChessBase on Nov. 1 here.
The second picture in the ChessBase story (man at chessboard) is the dust jacket picture of my US edition of Fernando Arrabal’s novel /The Tower Struck By Lightning/ (NY: Viking, 1988), translated by Anthony Kerrigan from his /La torre herida por el rayo/. The game that runs thru the novel actually shows a pretty fair match rate to Fritz 9 at 12/12 for both sides from move 9 on, enough to make me wonder if Arrabal was cheating from his “retrete” in 1988 thru a cable connected to the future. Or it may mean that ChessBase tuned Fritz to play like Arrabal :-).
Tal looks like Harpo Marx!
Why does Tal appear like he put him there at the very last moment?
tals arm and hand are huge… or rather, his head is too tiny. very disproportionate
It was posted before here:
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2006/11/fernando-arrabal-spanish-legend.html
Like I said they made a huge mistake. Tal only had 3 fingers!
Yes, indeed its a great chess painting!!!
— Ashik
http://chess4you.blogspot.com/2007/03/painting-of-great-chess-players-by.html
John – I think you’re right – it looks like Freddy Friedel. Thanks for that – it was driving me crazy!