The Card Players
Paul Cezanne, The Card Players, 1892-1895
Billie and James
We chose this work because it was a very natural scene, it wasn’t posed. It stood out next to his other paintings, which were natural landscapes. We liked the way he made textures from layers of colours.
It was very interesting to see that Cezanne did five different compositions of the same theme, card players, although in our version there is a red splash of colour on the top of the painting, which you can’t see in other versions. We found out that the artist was old and grumpy, and the people in the painting were his workers.
Because the atmosphere is very peaceful, we had the players play a game of snap to contrast that. We gave the red splat a meaning by having it link in with one of the characters’ emotions. As the player on the left is losing the game, his anger grows and the red splodge spreads over the painting.