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Growth o? Art and
Culture as Shown by
Their Evolution
JHTIHE average American devotee of
I pinochle or poker, and even of
the relatively "swelV bridge which
has aroused such a wave of protest against
fashionable "gambling," thinks only of the
game. He' doesn't realize that,' so-f 'anas
the luxury, the really artistic side of card
playing is concerned, he compares with all
ancient and some modern aristocracy about
as a Spartan of classical antiquity would
'have compared with the dainty and elegant
followers of Xerxes.
- ' But in Europe there are many ex
quisitely artistic card suits in use among
the wealthier 1 classes, and manufacturers
find fame and occasional fortunes in pro
ducing whole new galleries of the royalties
of the card table.
t Yet this modern world, with its un
paralleled facilities for truly magnificent
printing, has done no more than learn its
lessons from the triumphs of the past.
Where exist public and private collections
of playing cards which not only show on
their faces the history of Europe from the
Middle Ages down, but actually preserve
to us portraits of the most distinguished
personages.
W
rE A IX know it was th devfl who in-
Tented cards.
But when and how his Satanic
majesty persuaded himself to give to
humanity the one relief from the ennui that
drives most of us to his hospitality is something
history has no record of.
There is another legend of their origin, far
less authentic, as having been devised to divert
King Charles VI of France, in 1392; but the
credit that accords them to that other, shrewder
majesty is a good deal more reliable.
Long before Charles VI was thought of in
lYanee the Synod of Worcester, in 1240, had
forbidden the use of cards, because of that very
t attribution of them to the other royalty in red.
'Then again, in 1379. we have a record of
the duke of Wenzel buying a deck of cards,
.with the king of Castile, eight years afterward,
Bolemnly . backing up the horrified Synod of
.Worcester. ,
. The diverting cards were spread all over
Fnrope more than a century before Columbus
discovered America.
Y One old chronicle traces the Italian name
for card games, raib." to the orient, allying it
, with the "naipea"' of the Spanish and tying up
. both of them with the Persian "naib," meaning
iccroy or governor. On smne other evidence,
le iibt than that, the most probable opinion
i that cards had their origin somewhere in the
East
At ft they afforded do patne, as we con
tinue the Tword. They served primarily the
jrpcm of our modern picture postals, as a
means of information.
Certainly that is. the main object of the
rar-U attributed to Aixa JfantrgTi. in the
r!5d half cf the ftenth erntufy. There, in
tve ieetLoiia, w sea depicted the varices social
, THE OREGON SUNDAY
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JOURNAL TORTLAND. SUNDAY
MORNING, DECEMBER 5, 1003
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? Crafty. &r.-&fZSrtrrX
8tation8 rom bessar to the pope; the arts,
' the virtues, the muses and the planet world.
Bn fl8cendsncy which has proved permanent,
they had their values determined in every suit
by numbers and signs.
J ust as religion safeguarded learning in
the Middle Ages, so the cards recorded progress
in culture and in art.
Playing cards and prayer books the an
cient missals ran an incongruous race for
artistic decorations in. those old and insistently
joyous days. Kings and nobles were oftentimes
the recipients of missals painted; in every capi
tal: letter in 7. magnificent miniatures by the
geniuses of medieval art, whose piety immured
them in monaster jes and induced them to de
vote whole lifetinles o a single breviary. But
those , ostentatiously , .appreciative recipient
were most humanly prone to spend their rev
enues for decks of cards, to relieve the strain
of their virtue. ' '
The-duke of 'Milan, in 1430, quite coolly
pieces of gold, and, what' was more, paid for
, them. -Y .' ' .' .'
Those who, could not afford such elegancies
were content with .mere daubs, or some crude
stamping of the paper surfaces. And tfle pro
letariat hadn't any at all. They thanked heaven
when the night closed in with a square meal safe
iu their stomachs, and their stomachs safe in
their skins. , ...
When the art of painting gave 'birth t
moidern democracy, its first thought was to put
a deck, of crds in the hands of every nascent
'democrat. " 1 . '
' The close of the fifteenth century brought
the immense advance of the woodcut and copper
plate. Playing cards were among the. first to
respond to the ; new facilities ; -. their output
fairly jumped in volume. The general level of
artistic quality rose,, too; 'for,, with 'the line im-
prints supplied, it was a comparatively1 simple
matter to wash in water colors.
' The time 'came when art was furnished for
popular consumption in playing cards as well
as in china. Europe profits by it now.' In these
later days there-are some very clever card decks,
and at prices which those. not so exalted as
dukes can afford.
One of the most interesting of the last cen
tury was known as "The Criea of Paris," put
out between 1830 and 1840. The series showed
the street venders of all classes, :and were ex
cellent' examples, of .genre "work, very valuable
no.w as permanent portrayals of the eity types
at a period when it becomes moet difficult to
visualize them from description. Y 1
Our card today can be as, handsome as a
person of even moderate means and a mind
which is taken up exclusively with, the game
can desire. Germany produces some cards'
which are extremely graceful and attractive, aj .
though the old practice of using portraits, last
exemplified in the portrayal of Prince Felix
von Lichnowky, has fallen into complete desue
tude. '.;.. .
The hunting pack, where acorns replace tha
eld sign of the club, is too.-; the most popular
in modern Germany. Put the designs, carefully
and patriotically as they are draws and colored,
d rot compare with the dash and grace of. say, -the
four jacks of a deck produced by the Altca
turge? factory. , .-- -