I know, you're probably struggling to figure out which one is the real thing and which one is my personal sketch. It's okay, I'll clear it up for you. The top one is my sketch and the bottom one is the actual artwork. I know, it's really hard to tell.
VISUAL ANALYSIS:
This chess piece was made by Georges Hoentschel, but gifted to J. Pierpont Morgan. The piece was created approximately in 1250, with no specific date to it's name. The piece is 7.8 x 6.5 x 3.5 centimeters. The chess piece has no name, but is recorded as: "Chess Piece in the Form of a Knight."
The knight piece was said to have been created in London, England in 1250 A.D.. That means this piece was created right before the cultural Renaissance movement. This means that the chess piece has no influence by the age of humanism or any type of Greek mythology. That could be inferred, because it chooses to portray a knight with no detailed human features. What I mean by that is the artist, Hoentschel, chooses not to put a face to the Knight. This makes the knight less like a human, because a person's face is one of the most distinguishable features of our species.
As stated before, this work is a chess piece, more specifically, the knight piece. The subject of the piece is the knight fighting a dragon. This is important, because Chess was used as a training mechanism to help knight think up battle strategies. The purpose of the knight fighting the dragon is to remind whoever is playing what a knight stands for and the purpose of this game. They play to figure their best strategies for attack, to take down the enemy at all costs.
For the style of this work, it's arranged in an interesting way. Hoentschel obviously meant for the knight to be the stronger figure in this equation. This can be implied due to the fact that the knight's horse is stepping all over. By structuring the sculpture this way, Hoentschel implies that the knight is the more dominant one in the fight. However, the missing arm reminds the knight playing that sacrifices will be made in battle.
The functional purpose of the piece is to be sturdy so it doesn't break when someone plays chess with it. However, there is a lot of significance to this piece as well. There was a lot about this stated before, but I want to reiterate what I said. This work is a chess piece, more specifically the knight piece. During this time period most soldiers and captains would play chess to help them come up with better battle plans. The overall purpose of this piece is to encourage the knights who were playing that they do have the strength to succeed that their title as a knight embodies something bigger than themselves. It embodies a hero, someone who can slay any beast or enemy, and they have to honor this title given to them.
P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MRS. GENESKEY
Nice post (and sketch, too)! You did a great job of providing context for this work of art. I think it is really cool that the knight chess piece relates back historically to the knights from the feudal system. When you said that this piece wasn't influenced by Greek mythology, something else to think about would be: how would this piece be different if it was influenced in that way?
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