Here’s a second painting that clearly tells a story (see the earlier Dorés’ Saltimbanques). This picture is by the Flemish painter Nicolas Régnier (1591?-1667), a contemporary of Caravaggio, who spent most of his life in Italy. Many of Régnier’s paintings show the seamier or more frivolous side of life and several feature gypsies. One commentator characterized his work as expressing a “poetics of seduction.” This painting from around 1620 has variously been entitled Kartenspielende Gesellschaft and The Cardplayers and the Fortune-Teller. Use the Comments to tell us what story (or stories!) you see in this picture. What relationship might the artist be implying between cards and palm reading? What do each of these nine people want? Click on the image to see a larger version. Have fun.
Mary K. Greer has made tarot her life work. Check here for reports of goings-on in the world of tarot and cartomancy, articles on the history and practice of tarot, and materials on other cartomancy decks. Sorry, I no longer write reviews. Contact me
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September 30, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Troy Stengel
Hi, Mary, this is a beautiful painting! Thank you for sharing it. I’m not sure why it would be titled “The Fortune Teller.” It seems clear that it is a group playing a card game for money. The woman in brown is glancing over at the cards held by the man in yellow to her left who seems to be lost in thought. There is money in front of him. Also, the cards look like the four suit playing cards used around that time, with the French suit designs (?)
On an emotional level, I just can’t help but see some Major and Minor Arcana figures in this painting. The mostly hidden male figure in the back reminds me of The Magician; The woman in brown reminds me of the High Priestess; the woman in red, in the foreground, reminds me of The Empress. The Knight to her left – could he be the Knight of Cups? He seems to be gazing at her fondly. Also, the young man with the coins on the table – could he be the Page of Pentacles?
I noticed there are nine figures in this painting. I don’t know if it was intentional, but there could be a numerological progression of the number three – three Major Arcana cards, the Major Arcana cards add up to six, and then the nine figures. It looks like there are possibly only seven involved in actually playing the game (who are the two woman chatting with the man in the back?). Seven could be the first stage of experience in the Majors.
October 1, 2009 at 2:59 am
MalcolM
There seems to be a lot going on in this painting 🙂 There’s the contrast between the gypsies on the right, the well-healed folk playing cards, the soldier, and the shadowy person in the background.
The critic (Annick Lemoine) who coined the phraser “poetics of seduction” also states of this picture that “the angle formed by the antique relief, similar to the one found in The Concert with the Bas-relief by Valentin from the Louvre, represents […] a “y”, which in the 17th century was a symbol of the choice between good and evil.” If this is so – rather than just artistic composition – then the whole painting could be seen as portraying the various choices? e.g. – the woman facing the viewer could be representing an open and candid approach; she doesn’t appear to have any money on the table. The soldier behind her is apparently palming a card or cheating in some way, and possibly trying to look over her shoulder to see her cards. There’s one fellow studiously examing his cards “in all honesty”, while the woman to his left could just be pondering her own or possibly stealing a glimpse of the cards held by the player dressed in yellow/gold. Nice ambiguity. He in his turn seems dreamy and not really concentrating on the game of cards; maybe he’s listening to the fortune-teller’s patter behind him. The central shadowy figure, hardly seen, might be a self-portrait of the artist?
The painting could be themed “how to change the game”? Skill, cheating, playing it straight, force of arms, divination? Who knows?….
And I love the skill of the painting itself; could/do modern painters have that level of skill nowadays, or the time or patronage to express it?
October 1, 2009 at 3:58 pm
mkg
Troy –
You asked why this should be named “The Fortune Teller”. It’s because the woman with the headscarf is reading the palm of the young man.
If you superimpose a grid on top of the picture that divides it into thirds then some interesting things emerge. The faces of the five card players are all in the middle horizontal grid, whereas the faces of the fortune-tellers (elder and younger) and their client are all in the upper third. I think the shadowy figure at the top-center is with the fortune-tellers – at least his attention is focused on them.
It’s interesting that the bottom third of the painting shows only the 6 of Clubs and the well-turned legs of one man (well worth looking at!) and one woman (whose skirt is hitched up in a rather risqué manner) – a sexual innuendo that is not apparent otherwise.
Malcolm –
The “y” theory seems a weak one to me. There’s not much choice between good and evil going on here. Each person seems caught up in choices they’ve already made, and no one seems “better” than anyone else. To me it seems clear that one woman is cheating by looking at another’s cards. And I’m convinced the man in yellow is listening in on the palm reading. Perhaps everyone is cheating in some way? Personally I think the women are courtesans – well-dressed but not quite proper.
The heads of all four women are along the top-right to lower-left diagonal. The head of the woman in the foreground is actually above the line, but her hands lie exactly along it. This creates an interesting dynamic in which the women all seem to be “in the know” in some fashion, while the men are trying to figure something out. That is, except for the armored soldier at far left, whose “card-up-his-sleeve.” He seems to provide a bit of visual comedy in that you can’t help but laugh when you notice the card.
Care to speculate on what each of them wants?
Mary
October 1, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Glenda
The soldier, I think, is a cardsharp. It takes a fair amount of skill to conceal cards, especially while wearing armor.
I also think that the women are courtesans. The woman in orange seems to be showing her hand and looking in the direction where the painter would be standing. I think she is showing her cards to someone and looking for advice on how to play the hand.
The woman in black sees the young man in yellow as a pigeon ripe for the plucking, especially because he is paying no attention at all to the game and still has money. She is not going to let an opportunity like this get past her.
The man who is studying his cards intently, I suspect is thinking what I often heard when my parents and grandparents played pinochle: “Who dealt this mess?”
The fortune teller has a neutral but compassionate expression. I think she has bad news for the man she is reading (the young man in red). Two other men have been listening in. The “floaty-head” man looks shocked, and the man next to the fortune teller looks concerned. We cannot see the querent’s face, but I don’t see any shock or horror in his body language (skepticism, maybe?). Not sure what either of the eavesdropping men want, maybe some drama or gossip fodder.
The young man in yellow (who reminds me so much of Elijah Wood) is looking toward the young man in red, with an expression of longing. I think he has an infatuation or physical attraction to the man in red, something more than friendship. I think the two are young nobles who are out “sowing their wild oats.”
Thanks for posting this. It’s been fun!
October 7, 2009 at 1:40 pm
mkg
The figures in the painting can be divided into two groups – four who seemingly concentrate on the card game, plotting their play and cheating where they can—two are soldiers and two are probably courtesans.
Then there are five who are involved in the fortune telling: the two young noblemen (one who is distracted from the card game and getting cheated in the process), the two seeresses (the young being mentored by the old?) and a shadowy figure in the center-background (another gypsy?) who seems to be looking on, eyes wide with something like shock or horror. In some ways he’s the most interesting figure in the painting (and the most central).
To me, the young fortune teller has an expression of great compassion on her face. Out of all the people present she seems the most innocent and artless of them all. In a strange sort of turn-around (considering the reputation of gypsies), she may be warning the young nobleman that something bad may befall him if he joins in with the others.
The painting is done so that our attention falls first on the foreground figures: the woman in red and the man in yellow, and because of the position of their bodies and legs we might assume there is a casual sexual play between them. The hand being shown us by this woman is of little or no value—empty—and so, I think, it is a comment on the cardplay being also empty. It’s all a distraction from the real drama that’s going on in the palm reading. Even that import is hidden from us by the turned away face of the man being read – unless we look carefully at the faces of those looking at him – shock and horror, compassion, and, on the part of the elder behind the girl, concern.
We have a fake drama in the cards and a real drama taking place behind-the-scenes, so to speak. Fortune is being manipulated on the table as a dissimulation so that we don’t look too closely at a person’s life fortune that’s at a turning point in front of us (will he heed it or not?). Of course, the artist might be intending to tell us that it’s all a cheat or con game and that the two young nobles are about to get taken down on the wheel of fortune by one means or another (cards, sex or fortune-telling).
However, each person in the card game is in their own world, while the world of the fortune-telling is an integrated one, where for a moment each person seems to “care” what is happening to another. The man in yellow links the two events—for nothing else does.
October 16, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Polprav
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
October 23, 2009 at 7:01 pm
mkg
Polprav –
I just found your comment in my spam box. Yes, I’m happy to have you quote from my blog and link to me. Just make sure you’ve clearly identified the source. I’m thrilled with the opportunity to be read in Russian.
Mary