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Chessville
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Many artists have explored chess since its inception around two thousand years ago, but of these Barry Martin has been the most consistent, the most dedicated, the most inventive and, pace Marcel Duchamp, perhaps the most important. Chess, with its assorted emblematic military and hierarchical forces and the endless complexity and profundity of its variations, offers a symbol of the universe and its infinite powers, extent and laws. The symbolism emerges on many levels; that of destruction, creation, termination, rebirth and resurrection (as Martin has emphasized again and again with his references to the regenerative symbiosis of the pawn and its ability to transmute to a queen-see later in this chapter) not to mention in the venerable canon of chessboard-related symbolic richness: balance, harmony, the evident tension between black and white, the opposites of night and day as well as perpetual conflict, yet tempered by the ever present possibility of reconciliation in the outcome of a drawn game. In chess one detects an imperative towards meditation, yet also a yearning for risk and mystery.
Faith and courage are required for any belief system. See for example Martin’s “Sanctuary for Heroes”, where chess piece-like forms inhabit and protect a sacred fortress - Jerusalem of the Crusaders, Valhalla, Camelot - we cannot be sure, but the entities on the battlements are just as surely inspired by chessic forms as are the ‘Moules Maliques’ in Duchamp's “Large Glass”. Conversely, faith
and courage are also demanded if the decision is not to believe. You
can be absolutely certain, one way or another in your own mind, yet
there always remains that element... that frisson of doubt. It used to
be that way with chess analysis as well. Now, along come Deep Blue, Hydra or the Fritz computer program and all doubt is banished. There can be no room for faith, no allowance for intuition and no leap of belief where certainty is mathematically programmable. After consulting computer analysis one now knows for sure whether a particular variation functions perfectly or is unsound. Two of what I once considered to be my best British Championship games were utterly refuted by Fritz, which proved that my ostensibly very beautiful, very deep and very long combinations were simply flawed. Fortunately, chess is not confined to mere analysis. That would be a reductionist point of view. Mystery and art remain as a function of human imagination. Nietzsche's “Superman” functions in the knowledge that God is dead and that the universe is ultimately meaningless because it recurs cyclically. Yet the Superman has the courage to act as if this knowledge were not crippling.
We can be reassured that even computer experts confess that to construct an engine powerful enough to analyze every single game of chess to extinction would require instrumentality equaling the size of the known universe itself! The history of chess iconography, with its roots in many ancient societies, such as Egypt, India, Greece and Persia, has been investigated by Barry and used in numbers of his paintings and sculptures. This interest has also led to various written articles and lectures. Perhaps the best known of these is that entitled “Men of Staunton or Are They?” (1993 ‘Chess Monthly’) which is represented on many world websites and created a large amount of discussion worldwide as well as nationally. Here - inter alia - Barry argues persuasively that the Staunton pattern chess pieces now in universal use for tournaments and official matches of all kinds, find their roots in ancient Egyptian and Greek symbolism, going back to the horses' heads of the Elgin Marbles and even further back into antiquity. Chess, as we now play it, was introduced in the mid to late 15th-century, and swept away the older Arabic/Indian/Persian version of the game known as Shatranj with mysterious ease. The chief difference in the modern game, as Barry has consistently emphasized, is the massively enhanced power of the queen; and modern chess is certainly a more complicated game than Shatranj, thus offering a greater mental stimulus and challenge. Nevertheless, the older version of chess, with its chariots, elephants and viziers, was by no means unsubtle, and an impressive Shatranj culture had built up in Arabic lands over the centuries. Baghdad, in particular, was a thriving centre of Shatranj expertise, with a fervent population of gamesters led by Aliyat, or grandmasters, who numbered such illustrious names as the 10th century AD as Suli and Al Laj Laj amongst their adepts. These were men who not only played with great success, but also wrote down their most profound thoughts on the game, as we know from surviving scraps of records found in Constantinople, and other outposts, refuges and sanctuaries of learning.
The golden age of Islamic chess lasted around 150 years and began during the rule of the 4th Caliph of the Abbasid dynasty Harun ar Rashid - 786-809 AD. During this time, the classic games were played, puzzles devised and the openings catalogued, with such wonderful names as torrent, sword and goat peg. Both basic and advanced principles were adumbrated and recorded by an elite group of aliyat, many of whom found favour at the Caliph's court. Shatranj was, somewhat later, honoured in mediaeval Christian art by the chess book of the Spanish king, Alfonso The Wise, and the elements of Moorish or Islamic influence are quite unmistakable. The rapid disappearance of Shatranj is a puzzle. True, the new renaissance-inspired form of chess which we still play now, was better suited to the times. Chess, as I have pointed out already, is a game of war, the pieces representing a military hierarchy. Thus the introduction of a long range piece, such as the modern queen, may well have been a parallel to the 15th century deployment of distance weapons, such as the artillery, which in 1453 reduced the hitherto impregnable walls of Byzantium. Modern chess, as noted above, is also more complex than Shatranj, but that would scarcely account for the almost complete obliteration of Shatranj in favour of the new matrix. It is arguable that wei chi (also known as go) is a more difficult and richer game than draughts, or that Shogi and Xiangqi, respectively the Japanese and Chinese forms of chess, have advantages over the western game of chess. That does not, however, prevent all versions from co-existing in amicable fashion. If Jerusalem of the crusaders, Valhalla or Arthurian Camelot, then why not also Constantinople? From their final "Sanctuary" in Martin's translucent depiction, we can imagine the Palaeologian heroes looking down on the massed ranks of the new weapons, the giant cannon of the Hungarian engineer Urban - the military equivalent of the chess queens - which will destroy them. In spite of this, they refuse to renounce their faith.
To resolve one further mystery we may return to an even earlier vision - Baghdad - the very home of the original version of chess; not the debased 21st-century Baghdad, torn by internecine and sectarian strife, but the glittering fortress of the faithful; Baghdad of the Arabian Nights as it faced the might of the Mongols almost a millennium ago. The principal difference between the modern and old forms of chess is to do with the queen. The reason, however, for the easy triumph of chess over Shatranj can be traced to the Mongol warlord Hulagu, brother to Kublai Khan, of ‘stately pleasure dome’ fame, and grandson to the world conqueror Ghengis Khan. In 1258, Hulagu utterly destroyed Baghdad, the centre of Shatranj, its players and its writings. Glubb Pasha, the noted Arabist who once opened the Hastings Chess Congress, reports as follows in his book “Lost Centuries”:
Here we have the solution to our mystery. Why chess with the new queen so rapidly swept aside the old game. In Martin's picture, we can see the irresistible force of the new idea; we can touch its all conquering power and attraction. The accumulated knowledge of centuries of commentary, games and patient explanation about Shatranj by the first grandmasters in history had all gone up in smoke. When modern chess emerged, there was simply no surviving corpus of intellectual opposition: the history, literature and culture of Shatranj had been systematically annihilated by the Mongols. It is as if all knowledge and wisdom concerning modern chess were suddenly to be lost. Under such circumstances, a vigorous new game, similar but with a bigger board and exciting new pieces, such as stealth bombers, nuclear submarines and tanks armed with uranium enriched shells, might well replace the older, poorly documented version, overnight. As we know, chess already competes, with surprising success, for its place in the sun, against ‘shoot’em-up’ games and computer simulations. Without its rich literature, games by the greats and an accumulated treasury of brilliant combinations and checkmates to entice the neophyte, chess itself, as we know the game, might well succumb with extraordinary rapidity to the advent of a rival with more blatant popular appeal. Martin's efforts in the field of art help, as with his “Sanctuary”, to man the intellectual bulwarks against such dangers of dumbing down, and with a ‘piece’ such as his Queen, he mines, facets and burnishes the history and critical Hegelian “Wendepunkt” which brought us the modern game, born from the intense and violent crucible of late mediaeval warfare. The official history, British Artists Since 1945 (published in 2006) scratches the surface of Martin’s involvement in chess. Here we discover that Martin’s strong interest in chess was reflected in his being selected as the official artist for the world championship match between Nigel Short and Garry Kasparov in 1993, and also for Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik in 2000. Among his commissions was the Howard Staunton Memorial at Kensal Green Cemetery, 1997. Martin also unveiled an English Heritage blue plaque to Staunton at 2/117 Lansdowne Road, W11, in 1999. He was artistic consultant on Raymond Keene’s Chess for Absolute Beginners, 1993. The full story is, however, considerably more detailed, as one might expect. In 1989 Barry won the Chelsea Arts Club Open Chess Championship, overcoming 20 other contestants. World Champion Garry Kasparov presented him with the CAC Chess Championship prize at the Grandmasters’ Dinner (Dec 1989). In attendance were numerous other Grandmasters including Jon Speelman, Julian Hodgson and Ray Keene OBE, the author of this piece, with whom Barry went on to share multiple chess - related exploits. The following year (1990) Barry formed the CAC chess team and saw it accepted into the London Clubs’ Hamilton-Russell Cup League. He captained the CAC chess team for the next 16 years until 2006 – playing against clubs such as the RAC; Athenaeum; Oxford and Cambridge; East India; MCC etc, himself competing on either board one or two. In a variety of chess displays during the nineties, Barry took on several Grandmasters and Masters, achieving draws in Simuls against myself, David Norwood GM; Julian Hodgson GM; Bob Wade IM and Bill Hartston IM amongst others. David Bronstein, the former world championship challenger, sat behind Barry watching his game against David Norwood . David Bronstein immediately shook Barry's hand and congratulated him since he was the only one to draw in an endgame of four centralized pawns, a white bishop each and no spare squares. Early 1990s- Longleat – saw Barry raising money for WWF simul against Ray Keene GM. Good draw there with other players such as Dominic Lawson, Cathy Forbes (England’s woman chess champion) etc, all of whom lost. Barry was the only person to draw after a very hard game, even the host Alexander Thynn, then Viscount Weymouth lost. Also on the playing front, Barry achieved an officially recognized International Elo rating of 2010 by winning and drawing in the first Staunton Memorial Chess match in 1995 held in Chiswick House grounds. He went on to play and captain the Simpson’s-in-the-Strand team in the 4 NCL Division 1 chess tournament. Barry played on lower boards but achieved a number of good draws against 2200 opponents. During the early-mid 1990's Barry also won the prize for drawing his game at the Christies’ simultaneous display in Chelsea. He was given a book voucher, value £120.00, to bid at chess auction, acquiring a first edition of Nimzowitsch’s My System, that seminal text on chess strategy which so inspired Marcel Duchamp himself. In 1991 Barry and I went to France to meet ‘Teeny’ Duchamp at her family home near Fontainebleau. We were allowed to explore the house full of Marcel Duchamp’s works, sketches and notebooks. Barry played Teeny a game of chess on Marcel’s own designed chess set and board (the Buenos Aires Set). I preserved this image for posterity by taking photographs of the game. The image was seen worldwide.
Koltanowski,G - Duchamp,M 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 d6 4.e4 b6 5.f4 Bb7 6.Bd3 Nbd7 7.Nf3 e5 8.d5 g6 9.0-0 exf4 10.Bxf4 Bg7 11.e5 dxe5 12.Nxe5 0-0 13.Qd2 Nxd5 14.Nxd7 Nxf4 15.Nxf8 Bd4+ 0-1 Next we went to see the ‘Échecs’ exhibition in Paris at the Bibliotheque, with a view to borrowing some sets for a possible event at the Tate Gallery. There we met Jacqueline Matisse-Monnier, Teeny’s daughter from her first marriage to Pierre Matisse, Henri Matisse’s son. The principal event in the first half of 1991 was Barry's co-organization with myself and Richard Humphreys, Senior Curator, Tate Britain, of the ‘Art and Chess’ symposium at the Tate Gallery. This assembled many experts in the field of chess interpretation such as Richard Eales, the noted chess historian from the University of Kent at Canterbury, and Prof George Steiner from Cambridge.
Sir Nicholas Serota waxed highly enthusiastic about the Cage and Duchamp attendance and congratulated us on the success of the event. This was also attended by representatives from the Museum of Modern Art in Los Angeles, preparing for the John Cage circus “Rolywholyover at Moma” in late 1993. Sadly, Cage was to die before then and the planned celebration became more of a commemoration, attended and addressed on behalf of the UK chess fraternity by Ray Keene. Two curious anecdotes surrounded Cage's visit. On a chess-playing excursion to my flat in Kensington Cage - the composer of Four Minutes Thirty Seconds - a silent piece - was trying to concentrate on his game of chess when Barry's builder arrived to fix some plumbing for me - the builder was probably the most garrulous man ever to cross my path, and an unearthly contrast set in between the man of silence - Cage himself - and the man of maximal noise. Meanwhile, as Cage departed, we noticed that the flat below had been burgled, with the door spectacularly axed in, while we had been immersed in our game just above the drama. Something always
seemed to happen around Cage. As the finale of the Tate Chess and Art
day Barry had arranged for four delightful young ladies to perform an early
Cage string quartet. Just as the piece reached its climax, the cellist
dropped her instrument and fell to the floor - written in by Cage as a
coup-de-theatre we all wondered? No! An epileptic seizure, from
which she soon recovered, but Cage relished the random nature of the
happening, even though he had not orchestrated it! Martin crowned the day at the Tate by organizing a dinner at the Chelsea Arts Club to conclude the symposium. It also celebrated John Cage’s birthday and the Barry designed a birthday cake for the composer in the shape of Duchamps’ infamous urinal, ‘The Fountain’. John Cage enjoyed the event immensely and dedicated one of the Tate Chess posters, along with Teeny Duchamp, to the artist. A coveted treasure that now hangs in pride of place in Barry's home. In mid-1991 Barry and I traveled to Brussels for the World Chess Championship quarter-finals’ draw. Barry proposed that sponsors Swift use copies of Duchamps’ celebrated ‘La Fontaine’ as the mechanism to choose colours and first round opponents. When the time came, former world champion Karpov comically hesitated to put his hand into the large white inverted urinal in order to determine his colour by plucking out a velvet pouched mini-urinal (aka Fontaine). The mini-fontaines were either black or white, thus determining colours for the games to come. This constituted a spectacular homage to Marcel Duchamp, whose spirit lived on with Teeny Duchamp and John Cage in attendance.
The following year, in keeping with the surreal/Dada environment of the Brussels opening, Barry exhibited at the ‘Beaux Arts’ gallery, ‘The Art of Chess’ exhibition. Along with Duchamp, Man Ray, Magritte and Ernst. As part of the 1993 Kasparov v Short world championship, Barry played Nigel Short in a 3-minute blitz game on stage at The Savoy, watched by a large live audience and also televised. The time-based nature of chess, as in other games, has been of great interest to Barry and relates to his interest in time and movement as expressed in many of his other art works that are not explicitly chess-related. Barry played black in the game vs Short and - ironically - lost on time, but still ended in a good position in terms of placings on the board. Yuri Averbakh, the arbiter, came over at the end and shook his hand and congratulated him. Averbakh later wrote to Barry and congratulated him again, in recognition also that Barry had presented to the Moscow Chess Museum (of which Yuri Averbakh was the Director) some drawings of Short and Kasparov. To celebrate Nigel Short’s World Chess Championship match against Garry Kasparov, Barry was appointed the official artist for the match by ‘The Times’ newspaper at the Savoy Theatre, London. Part of this entailed being interviewed by Carol Vorderman with some of his art works for Channel 4 television. Commissioned by ‘The Times’ to produce two limited edition silkscreen prints – of Short and Kasparov - ‘The Times’ presented the Nigel Short representation to the National Portrait Gallery for their collection. It was exhibited for six months and also appeared in ‘The Times’ newspaper. It now resides in the NPG permanent collection. Much of the artwork produced was in colour, exhibited in numerous exhibitions with some now in museum collections, including the Hastings Art Museum and, as we have seen, the Chess Museum, Moscow, Russia. As the piece-de-resistance, a large charcoal drawing of the match was used as the final television image for each of the Channel 4 daily live transmissions of the championship. ‘The Times’ official history reported on this match as follows. It was the most widely reported and important chess event to have been held in the UK for over a century - probably since the de facto World Championship match between Steinitz and Zukertort in London 1872. Over to The Times official history:
The 1993 world championship was preceded earlier that year by a second ‘Art & Chess’ symposium at the Tate Gallery where Martin characteristically delivered a paper on the historical development of the Queen in chess. As mentioned above, Barry forged a connection with the town of Hastings, host since 1895, to the world's longest running traditional chess tournament. He exhibited 16 drawings at the Hastings Museum of Art “Bad Bishops and Red Rooks” 1995 Exhibition and gave a lecture “Chess and Art”, first given as a talk at the Tate 1993 Symposium “Chess and Art”.
Accordingly Barry invited myself and Brian Clivaz, at that time running Simpson’s, to visit the site, and we resolved to form the Howard Staunton Society to raise money to replace and rectify this national disgrace. Barry masterminded a letter to ‘The Times’ signed by himself along with numerous grandmasters including Jonathan Speelman and Julian Hodgson, as well as Bob Wade OBE and others. This cri-de-coeur was printed as a leading letter and raised national awareness about the unsatisfactory condition of Staunton's physical remains.
Barry is noted for his art performances at chess events, which are often designed, in maximally imaginative fashion, to determine the colours of play at the commencement of an event. An exception, however, was a featured performance to conclude the Kramnik vs Kasparov world chess championship match in 2000, at London's Riverside Studios. This was called “•Led•Com•”. For posterity, a film of the performance was taken by the Yugoslav journalist Dmitri Bjelica, but it has since mysteriously disappeared into the wilds of Serbia, perhaps "that Serbonian bog, where armies whole have sunk" as Milton put it in Book II of Paradise Lost! Here is a task for future art archaeologists, to unearth this lost work and re-insert it into the Martin canon. One surviving offshoot, though, was a very large print, 8ft wide (2003), depicting Barry standing on one foot with one hand formed in the position to make a chess move, against a chequered background. This was created from the experience of the performance of the same name at Riverside and was produced when Barry was invited into the Slade School of Art, London, to make a print as an honoured artist. Amongst Barry's other chess activities around this time were a visit to Jordan, invited by Prince Mohammed bin Talal, King Hussein’s brother, to give a lecture to Bedouins, entitled "Staunton at Petra." Barry also sponsored the Oxford v Cambridge Varsity match for three years. The Varsity Match, the boat race of the brain, dates back to 1873, and is thus the world's longest running chess match. Thus with his lecture and exhibits at Hastings, and his support for the Oxford v Cambridge clash, Barry established historic links with the two longest running chess events in the world, the Varsity Match and the Hastings tournament. In 1997 Barry organised the MIND SPORTS AND ART EXHIBITION AT THE ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL to mark the first Mind Sports Olympiad, while from 1999-2004 Barry made a number of bronze and plaster chess-related sculptures, cast by the Royal College of Art, London; several sold to German collectors. Then, in 2003, Barry was accorded the honour of having a small one-person retrospective of his art/chess pieces shown at Somerset House in the Gilbert Collection, running alongside the Exhibition “The Art of Chess”. This prestigious event included a number of the White Cube Gallery artists, such as Damien Hirst, the Chapman Brothers, and also Yoko Ono, all exhibiting their chess set designs amongst a historical context, which included chess works by Marcel Duchamp; Man Ray and Max Ernst. Also, Barry was declared official artist for the simultaneous matches held to open the Exhibition. These included pre-teenage Grandmaster-to-be David Howell. Mention of Howell brings us neatly to Barry's role in the foundation of the Staunton Memorial Tournaments, also dating from 2003. Howell, of course, played in the inaugural event, en route to becoming the UK's youngest ever Grandmaster at the age of sixteen. In this first tournament the selection of colours, as at Brussels, again exercised Barry's fertile mind. He, with the co-operation of Robin Easton, then General Manager of Simpsons, concealed chess pieces of differing colours in tureens of lobster bisque. From these the players, and visiting Dutch GM Jan Timman, standing in for Daniel King GM, somewhat bemusedly fished out the piece which would determine their place and colour sequence in the drawing of lots. Meanwhile Barry's other chess-related activities continued unabated, designing various chess compositions for chess sets (illustrated in this book) and initiating a chess cabinet for Simpson’s-in-the-Strand. This was sponsored by Clive Davey, Treasurer for the Staunton Society, with myself, Barry and Clive filling the cabinet with chess memorabilia. These included the front cover of Chess Monthly on which Barry and I appear when we first formed the Staunton Society (1993).
Keene On Chess is
Sponsored by...YOU!!
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Furthermore, in
Martin's Queen picture, may we detect the billowing smoke and confusion of
the cannon, the swirling emblematic purple of the doomed Byzantine
emperors, amounting to the infinite complexity of a turning point in
history, the death throes of the vestigial and anachronistic Roman Empire,
as history enters a new age? The changes in the game of chess reflect
this epochal advance. I should add that Martin's inspired work was chosen
to illustrate the front jacket of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's spiritualist
novel, “The Land of Mist” when it was reissued by Impala
Publications.
The outcry
resulted in a blue plaque for Staunton as noted earlier, and the creation of
a splendid tombstone for him at Kensal Green, with a quotation from his
beloved Shakespeare in gold leaf uniting Staunton's two main passions.
As we move through
2007 Barry's next exploit will be his co-organization of the fifth Staunton
Memorial Tournament, sponsored by our Dutch art and chess loving friend Jan
Mol, founder of the Serious Fun Club. As the strongest UK tournament
for 21 years this will be a Sanctuary for Heroes of the chessboard,
including Jan Timman, Jon Speelman and Michael Adams. Also one chess
Queen will be playing and displaying her power, in the shape of Jovanka
Houska. We can only wonder and speculate what new invention Barry
will come up with to determine the colours and order of play, when the
Orange Dream Team from the Netherlands clashes with the UK's finest.
