Schaken als kunst
Mathieu en Ine Kloprogge hebben het ultieme boek voor de schaakliefhebber én designgenieter gemaakt, Chessmen Art and History. Hun verzameling schaakstukken groeide uit tot een publicatie waarin kunst, historie en ontwerp van het spel der koningen uitgediept en zichtbaar gemaakt worden. Het Louvre, British Museum en Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York werkten mee aan deze schitterende uitgave.
De toelichting bij hun boek onderstreept hoe zij de culturele en maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen in de loop der eeuwen en hun weerslag -soms zeer opmerkelijk en zeer politiek bijvoorbeeld- op het ontwerp van schaakstukken en borden een duidelijke rol laten spelen in hun analyse en in de presentatie: “Over the years Mathieu and Ine Kloprogge have spent a great deal of enthusiasm and time on collecting chess sets, and consequently they travelled all over Europe. Today they are the proud owners of a precious and extraordinarily interesting, private collection.
They often admire the workmanship of the sets, particularly of the older ones, the patience of the craftsmen and the ingenuity with which some concepts were technically solved. The authors have deliberately chosen not to describe any games of chess, however famous or ingenious. They have concentrated entirely on the origin and evolution of chess and the description of chess sets and chess pieces.
Unlike other books in this field they have classified the chessmen first by century and afterwards by country. Each century starts with an introduction in which the most important cultural, social and scientific developments of the period are described and the influence they had on the design of chess pieces. In the book many sets of their private collection are shown and described in addition to many famous chess sets from all over the world. Dozens of museums have contributed to the realization of this book, including the Louvre, the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
With the book comes a special CD. The CD contains many close-up images of the chess pieces shown as well as historical information about the cities where the chess sets had been made during the centuries.
Op hun website http://www.chessmen.eu vindt u nog meer info en illustraties uit de collectie. Het boek kunt u direct online bestellen bij Gopher en in elke boekhandel.
