Sofonisba Anguissola, Portrait of the artist's sisters playing chess, 1555. Source: wikipedia.
It is annoying that posts that mention chess to the general public often have inaccurate information. One example is the following article, "Game On," by Paul Dickens, from The New Criterion. It notes Anguissola's work and is a book review of Frank Lantz's new book, The Beauty of Games. It is a high-brow, erudite review, but it starts with...
The story goes that in 1923 Marcel Duchamp finally abandoned his “hilarious picture” of psychosexually contorted glass and wire, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, to spend more time playing chess. He was certainly obsessed with the austere beauty of the game, famously pronouncing that “while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” For most of us, however, if we are minded to consider the aesthetic value of games at all, it is usually only in a derivative sense. We can appreciate the Art Deco elegance of Duchamp’s own custom-made chess set, for instance, without sharing his passion for obscure variations on opening d4.
"The Story goes." "Famously pronouncing." "Obscure variations on opening d4." Why is it that books or articles that mention chess are so often lacking in accuracy and sources?
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