Yesterday evening, as part of the Art Tuesdays cycle ‘One Hour One Wine,’ Béatrice Leroux Huitema and Christophe Capdeville, our operations director, presented Paul Cézanne’s painting The Card Players, in conjunction with Château Brane-Cantenac 2004. This 1890 masterpiece (57X48) is kept at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

In the early 1890s, Cézanne painted five pieces on the theme of card players. They differed through their format, the number of characters and the significance of the décor.

Here, two men are playing across from each other. One is smoking a pipe made of white clay and is wearing a strange derby hat and a starched collar. The other, wearing an old battered hat, is looking intently at his cards. These characters are supposedly peasants whom the painter observed on his father's property Le Jas de Bouffan, near Aix. The man smoking the pipe has been identified as “father Alexandre,” the site’s gardener.

Together in the back of a café, around a table and a bottle of wine, they are playing. Of course, the table is crooked, the tablecloth is twisted and the two players have never-ending legs, but the harmony of ochers, browns and reds envelops the painting in mystery and unveils the beauty of the scene, the peacefulness of the card game, the gravity, sacredness, eternity of the representation. The human being, for the length of a card game, a meditation, a silence, thereby becomes modest and magnificent.

Cézanne had certainly seen Les joueurs de cartes, which has been attributed to the Le Nain brothers, at the museum in Aix-en-Provence, his home town. In the 1890s, the artist dealt with this Caravaggio-inspired theme on several occasions and imparted an exceptional gravity to the game. Cézanne replaced subtle plays on movements and glances with the massive silhouettes and silent concentration of his characters.

The bottle, a play on light, is the central focus of the composition. It separates the space into two symmetrical zones, which accentuates the division between the players. Out of the five paintings that the painter devoted to this subject, this is one of the barest. Here, everything comes together to give the composition a monumental appearance, with sumptuously paired colors.

The recurrence of card players in the late years of Cézanne’s art gave rise to an interesting interpretation: could the confrontation between the two players symbolize the artist’s struggle to have his father acknowledge his painting, which is portrayed here by the ‘playing card’?

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/collections/catalogue-des-oeuvres/notice.html?no_cache=1&nnumid=1312

As for the Brane-Cantenac 2004, which could be served during this card game, it is a wine that never ceases to surprise us with its freshness, aromatic palette and smooth, long-lasting taste. Criticized by the press when it was released, the 2004 is decidedly a great Bordeaux…The June/July 2007 special edition of the magazine l’Express chose it as the only Margaux in its cellar on page 42! In Le Figaro in June 2005, Laure Gasparotto singled it out as one of the vintage’s best deals: ‘Brane-Cantenac reveals a majestic harmony with complex notes of plum, morello cherry and vanilla’. As for Eric Asimov from the New York Times, he chose it as his number 1 wine…and gave it four stars: ...our top wine, Château Brane Cantenac....Underneath the tannins lies a fresh, elegant wine, with classic Margaux aromas of flowers, cassis, minerals and earth. Stylish and well-balanced!

A great classic!