Professional gamblers are often called true artists of the game. Well, this statement is not the only one that connects gambling with art. On the contrary, these two popular activities have a lot in common. Surprised to hear this? Keep on reading if you are interested to find out in what ways games based on luck and art projects are related.
The Game of Inspiration
True, inspiration is everywhere around us, but when we think about famous artists and their paintings, most of us first think about nature, beautiful, feminine ladies, and important historic events. The interesting truth is that many of the great art creators were triggered by gambling. This may sound odd, but when you put on your thinking cap….gambling is a huge part of the world’s earliest history, found in many different cultures all around the globe. This said, it becomes pretty logical why many grand painters wanted to capture the moments of rolling dices, playing cards, or having fun around the roulette or
poker tables.
The Famous Art Pieces Motivated by Gambling
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, an Italian painter who had a substantial influence on Baroque painting, demonstrated three men enjoying a card game in his famous work “The Cardsharps”. Respected artist, Caravaggio, found inspiration in the gambling era in Italy, back in the 16th century.
While Caravaggio envisioned people playing cards, Cassius Marcellus Coolidge had something a bit different on his mind. One of the most famous paintings inspired by gambling is “Dogs Playing Poker”. And it’s displaying exactly that; various breeds of dogs sitting around the poker table, smoking and drinking hard liquors. The picture is quite interesting, and it’s supposed to illustrate this, typically, man activity. This masterpiece was created in 1903. , and it’s considered to be one of the most famous paintings in the American pop era.
As we already mentioned man and dogs playing cards, why don’t we skip to the more modern epoch and tell you the story about a lady who played slots? “Slot Machine Queen” painted by Shelly Wilkerson is a contemporary work of art, which shows an aged woman with a cat in her lap, in front of the slot machine. Judging by the happy expression on her face, we would say that the lucky woman scored a nice win. The picture demonstrates the joy of winning. In some way, we found this piece quite humoresque. Wilkerson didn’t score massive popularity with this portion of art, but it still caught the attention of all those people who find entertainment and joy in gambling.
From Paintings to Motion Pictures
These are just a few examples of many gambling-themed works of art. The activity of gambling was and still is exploited in many creative ways; it started as a painting, it developed into music, and finally into motion pictures and
games. Therefore, we can only conclude that the joy of gambling and the art of creativity had a deep and meaningful connection, throughout the centuries.
