Wednesday, September 13, 2023

The Masters: Great Artists

 Today, I created a subcategory of the "Old Europeans" section and separated out the artists and musicians from the others who were mostly kings.  I was thinking about this section since I just unpacked a Leonardo de Vinci deck that I bought this summer in France.  Here's a description of the de Vinci deck:

The de Vinci deck included three jokers. Here's the jokers, the ace of spades, the box, and the back.

Leonard de Vinci Playing Cards

It was published by Editions Dusserre, a division of Cartamundi.


It is a gorgeous deck celebrating the work of a brilliant mind. I also reinforces one of my recent observations which is that playing cards are consistently providing an astounding amount of high quality art to consumers at incredible good prices.  This deck has a work of art by de Vinci on all the face cards and aces plus information on the other cards.

This section is not just jokers with pictures of great artists, there' also painters, writers, magicians and composers. Here for instance is a joker with the Grimm Brothers.
Grimm Brothers Playing Card Joker

And here's Vincent Van Gough with his ear intact.



I particularly like Pissaro since he lived and painted in Kew, England where I use to live.  There was a  restaurant pub there called Pissaro where I spent time.  Actually, a lot of time. They had reproductions of his paintings on the wall: many of the paintings were of local scenes.
 

Leonardo de Vinci:  His art and intellect: astounding every time I consider it. Here's more images of him on jokers.



Here are the ensemble shots of the Great Master section which, if you include the three de Vince jokers that I just added, make a total of about 40 jokers.




Leonardo de Vinci Joker Playing Cards


Old Europeans (with names) - The section that this was just split off from.
Great Classical Art
Modern and Digitally Created Art
There's also the Ghislain Swimberghe deck of cards which includes both his artwork and some jokers with pictures of him. He is categorized in the art section since the vast majority of the jokers are artwork (not portraits of him). I include the de Vinci deck here although there's also a mix of pics of him and his artwork on the jokers but the ratio is different.  

Other Articles where I discuss entire decks, not just the jokers

The de Vinci deck - this page.




2 comments:

  1. On the Leonard de Vinci box does the woman lower left, with finger pointing up, appear to be the same as one in the Mona Lisa painting? Do you know the name of the lower left painting?
    I see the Vitruvian Man. Have you seen my Vitruvian Angel?

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  2. I think it's a different lady. The lady in the Mona Lisa is Madam Lisa Giocondo. She was the wife of a wealthy merchant who was a neighbor (and did business) with Leonardo's father. There's some mystery about if and why Leonardo ever finished the painting. Some think he finished a first version and delivered it. This means that the masterpiece that we all know was a second more thoughtful and studied effort that he painted over decades. Another theory is that the original painting in underneath the famous one. There's evidence for both. BTW, in France, the painting is known as "La Giocondo".

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Thanks for your input and for reading and thinking about jokers.