Phil Innes wrote (Mon, 25 Sep 2006 18:22:25 GMT):
7 While not quite understanding why these 2 characters
7 are discussing something from a humanities newsgroup
7 in a chess one, ...
_
I believe the most recent discussion has been a reaction
to rec.games.chess.politics statements of this sort:
_
"... In a humanities newsgroup the hapless
Brennen was making a hash of some chess
exlanation, and to clarify something of the
board position I said I could, and why - I have
otherwsie never mentioned my rating in a
chess newsgroup. ..." - Phil Innes (Wed,
07 Jun 2006 16:36:09 GMT)
_
"... in truth, i never mentioned any rating, ever,
in any chess newsgroup, and only contradicted
some idiocy of Brennans in a humanities
newsgroup, to indicate that he was a chess
idiot, didn't know whta he was saying ..." - Phil
Innes (Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:00:14 GMT)
_
Such statements (here) have inspired others to look
up the now famous "nearly an international master"
note and the notes that led up to it. No Neil Brennen
"hash" or "idiocy" was identified in those notes.
Instead, it appears that Phil Innes was reacting to
something that he saw at a site mentioned by "lyra".
The notes are again reproduced below so that Phil
Innes can see for himself.
_
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
From: "Chess One"
Newsgroups: humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare
Subject: Be not self-WILL'd
Message-ID: 90W3d.12449$%42.6255@trndny08
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:28:37 GMT
lyra wrote:
BEN IONSon (anagram)
BENISON on...!
and note the picture of him making the sign of BENEdiction
or blessing, in The Chess Picture
http://www2.localaccess.com/marlowe/portrait.htm
Dear Art - what interesting images [especially the final one, the
x-ray]
however...
**In the strange commentary [AA]:-
"The Chess Portrait has van Mander's signature at the top right corner
and
its 1604 date is just about right for the time van Mander seems to have
been
in London. The paint dates to the period and the painting is
authentic.
One may find a discussion of it in Frederick J Pohl's *Like to the
Lark, The
Early Years of Shakespeare.* For my money this is the most authentic
of all
the possible paintings. Jonson is clearly the man on the left, at 286
pounds
and towering over other Elizabethans, his features are unmistakable.
He is
conceding the game three moves before mate. The man on the our right
(Shakespeare?) is holding the board or stage with his left hand and
moving a
knight with his right. Behind them are the initials SS, two ink horns,
one
of which has a pen in it and a crumpled paper beside it. A third man,
likely a player, because of the course red outfit, watches. Jonson has
taken four of the winner's pawns...a type of game generally called a
"pawn
sacrifice."
**The final comment is a nonsense, and would not make sense to a
chessplayer. Where a player sacrifices material, [pawns or pieces], the
player is said to /gambit/ the material.
**It is also not at all clear that 'Jonson' is conceding the game, and
from
what I can determine from the board, there is no mate-in-three that I
can
discern and why that claim should be made is not clear to me, in fact
White
has considerably more material at hand, and, other things being equal,
apparently could defend against current threats to the extent of
continuing
to win the game.
**Another photograph carries the caption:-
" It [sic] title is "Unknown Melancholy Man." Like the Cambridge
portrait
of Marlowe, the sitter's hands are concealed, suggesting he is a keeper
of
secrets. The sword guards form an SS. The tree behind him is a
Greenwood
tree or Poplar. The house is vaguely like the Old Palace at Hatfield.
He is
certainly not happy about who is walking that woman in the garden."
**However, I have several objections to this commentary:-
(a) the first has to do with the title itself, since /in the period/
and
certainly later, 'melancholy' has another, an esoteric, and indeed a
primary
meaning: the same sense as used by Durer.
(b) frank observation of the subject's features may or may not suggest
'melancholy' in our modern sense, but would certainly do so in Durer's
sense.
(c) melancholy is not synonymous with 'sad', and in fact meant nothing
of
the kind, and instead refers to a contemplative quietness of mind which
traditionally is often associated with Saturn. The Durer image
explicitly
allows us to see what the meditator is contemplating, and if we allow
for
the original meaning of the word, then this 'author?' portrait shows us
the
subject of his contemplation
Cordially, Phil
NB: The conjunction below provides a date.
--------------------------
The second, sir, [John Harvey] is a physician
or a fool, but indeed a physician, and had proved a proper man if he
had not spoiled himself with his Astrological Discourse of the terrible
conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter.
so he, God's BENISON light upon him,
was the first that invented English hexameter;
Quip For An Upstart Courtier -- "Robert Greene"
---------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
_
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From: "Art Neuendorffer"
Newsgroups: humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare
References: ... 90W3d.12449$%42.6255@trndny08
Subject: Chess Portrait by Karel van Mander
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:41:16 -0400
Message-ID:
lyra wrote:
BEN IONSon (anagram)
BENISON on...!
and note the picture of him making the sign of BENEdiction
or blessing, in The Chess Picture
http://www2.localaccess.com/marlowe/portrait.htm
"Chess One" wrote
Dear Art - what interesting images [especially the final one, the x-ray]
however...
**In the strange commentary [AA]:-
"The Chess Portrait has van Mander's signature at the top right corner and
its 1604 date is just about right for the time van Mander seems to have
been
in London. The paint dates to the period and the painting is authentic.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
John Baker wrote (March 1999):
Its called the Chess Portrait by Karel van Mander dated 1604.
volker multhopp wrote:
I didn't find the van Mander, but I did find:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/art.htm.
Here is a list of known chess artists or artists who play chess.
Mander, Karel van
Middleton, Thomas; "A Game At Chess" (1624)
Why it's our old friend Thomas Middleton! :-)
Fancy meeting HIM here.
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.fwkc.com/encyclopedia/low...03002760f.html
BRUEGHEL, Pieter, the Elder (c. 1525/30-69),
Modern scholars are far from interpreting Brueghel's art
as simple drolleries and folk subjects painted by an artist
from mere peasant stock, as Karel van Mander (1548-1606)
described him in 1604. Recent writers see him as a knowledgeable
man with such intellectual friends as geographer Abraham Ortelius.
Brueghel's art has been variously interpreted as referring to the
conflicts between Roman Catholicism & Protestantism, to the political
domination of the Lowlands by the Spanish, and as parallels to dramatic
allegories performed publicly by Flemish societies of rhetoric.
--------------------------------------------------------------
1603, 31 August, Karel van Mander writes about Caravaggio
in _Het Schilderboek_ (1604):
There is also a certain Michelangelo da Caravaggio who paints
wonderful
things in Rome. He has laboriously emerged from poverty by means of
hard
work, tackling and accepting everything with foresight and daring, as
is
done by some who do not wish to remain inferior through timidity and
cowardice. He is one who cares little for the works of others without
at the
same time overtly praising his own. He holds that all works are nothing
but
childish trifles, whatever their subject and by whomever they are
painted
unless they are made and painted from life and that there can be no
good or
better way of painting than to follow nature. He is a mixture of grain
and
chaff: indeed he does not continuously devote himself to this study but
when
he has worked for a couple of weeks he swaggers about for a month or
two,
his sword at his side and a servant behind him and goes from one ball
game
to another ever ready for a duel or a scuffle so that it is almost
impossible to get to know him.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org...letterMain.htm
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/Ashbourne.htm
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org..._II_Winter_20=
02.pdf
_A Golden Book, bound richly up_
By Barbara Burris =A92001
The Dutch painter Cornelius Ketel, whose initials Barrell found in
the painting through X-rays, was in England from 1573 to 1581. Hatton
introduced Ketel as a painter to Elizabeth's Court in 1578. Van Mander
notes Ketel painted a portrait of Oxford. In 1580 Harvey mocked
Oxford's
wearing of large French Camerick ruffs. Barrell's X-ray examination
revealed a large circular ruff under the visible ruff. Lord Russell's
1580 French ruff fits perfectly over the outlines of this hidden
ruff.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
One may find a discussion of it in Frederick J Pohl's *Like to the Lark,
The
Early Years of Shakespeare.* For my money this is the most authentic of
all
the possible paintings. Jonson is clearly the man on the left, at 286
pounds
and towering over other Elizabethans, his features are unmistakable. He
is
conceding the game three moves before mate. The man on the our right
(Shakespeare?) is holding the board or stage with his left hand and moving
a
knight with his right. Behind them are the initials SS, two ink horns, one
of which has a pen in it and a crumpled paper beside it. A third man,
likely a player, because of the course red outfit, watches. Jonson has
taken four of the winner's pawns...a type of game generally called a "pawn
sacrifice."
**The final comment is a nonsense, and would not make sense to a
chessplayer. Where a player sacrifices material, [pawns or pieces], the
player is said to /gambit/ the material.
**It is also not at all clear that 'Jonson' is conceding the game, and
from
what I can determine from the board, there is no mate-in-three that I can
discern and why that claim should be made is not clear to me, in fact
White
has considerably more material at hand, and, other things being equal,
apparently could defend against current threats to the extent of
continuing
to win the game.
Dear Phil -
There was a lot of discussion 5 years ago about the "Chess Portrait"
but you are the first (that I recall) to analysis the actual chess
play.
**Another photograph carries the caption:-
" It [sic] title is "Unknown Melancholy Man." Like the Cambridge portrait
of Marlowe, the sitter's hands are concealed, suggesting he is a keeper of
secrets. The sword guards form an SS. The tree behind him is a Greenwood
tree or Poplar. The house is vaguely like the Old Palace at Hatfield. He
is
certainly not happy about who is walking that woman in the garden."
**However, I have several objections to this commentary:-
(a) the first has to do with the title itself, since /in the period/ and
certainly later, 'melancholy' has another, an esoteric, and indeed a
primary
meaning: the same sense as used by Durer.
(b) frank observation of the subject's features may or may not suggest
'melancholy' in our modern sense, but would certainly do so in Durer's
sense.
(c) melancholy is not synonymous with 'sad', and in fact meant nothing of
the kind, and instead refers to a contemplative quietness of mind which
traditionally is often associated with Saturn. The Durer image explicitly
allows us to see what the meditator is contemplating, and if we allow for
the original meaning of the word, then this 'author?' portrait shows us
the
subject of his contemplation
Cordially, Phil
-------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
_
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
From: "Chess One"
Newsgroups: humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare
References: ...
Subject: Chess Portrait by Karel van Mander
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 22:13:37 GMT
Dear Art,
to address only the chess portrait:-
For my money this is the most authentic of
all
the possible paintings. Jonson is clearly the man on the left, at 286
pounds
and towering over other Elizabethans, his features are unmistakable. He
is
conceding the game three moves before mate. The man on the our right
(Shakespeare?) is holding the board or stage with his left hand and
moving
a
knight with his right. Behind them are the initials SS, two ink horns,
one
of which has a pen in it and a crumpled paper beside it. A third man,
likely a player, because of the course red outfit, watches. Jonson has
taken four of the winner's pawns...a type of game generally called a
"pawn
sacrifice."
**The final comment is a nonsense, and would not make sense to a
chessplayer. Where a player sacrifices material, [pawns or pieces], the
player is said to /gambit/ the material.
**It is also not at all clear that 'Jonson' is conceding the game, and
from
what I can determine from the board, there is no mate-in-three that I
can
discern and why that claim should be made is not clear to me, in fact
White
has considerably more material at hand, and, other things being equal,
apparently could defend against current threats to the extent of
continuing
to win the game.
Dear Phil -
There was a lot of discussion 5 years ago about the "Chess Portrait"
but you are the first (that I recall) to analysis the actual chess
play.
I must qualify what I have said therefo from the resolution of the
painitng on my monitor I can't tell Kings from Queens for white or
black,
but given the worst placements from white's perspective, I would still
hold
these views, [even though black is holding a piece in the air].
My qualifications for saying so is that I was nearly an international
master, with a rating of 2450, which is a tolerably qualified level to
offer
an opinion - for example, Nil, who used to post here before splitting,
so to
speak, was a player of about 1400 rating, and this "ELO" scale is not
linear. This is not to say that Nil could not also resolve the
situation
over the board - but given the best imagined placements for black and
the
worst for white, it is hard or even impossible to assert
"mate-in-three" if
a board position cannot be resolved.
Phil
-------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
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