Dogs Gambling Painting Meaning

1. Dogs Gambling Painting Meaning Definition
2. Dogs Gambling Painting Meaning Symbolism
3. Dogs Gambling Painting Meaning Dictionary

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Quite an impressive resume for Cash, and the sections discussing his most lasting gifts, the paintings of dogs playing poker, is just beginning. Coolidge first began his career as a professional artist by creating artwork for local cigar companies that used his paintings for “lithographed box covers or inner box lids.” Although his most famous paintings are those with dogs in them, Cassius also created many other works. He painted a poster for the Columbia Bicycle Company of Massachusetts around 1895. It shows a monkey riding a bicycle with a parrot on the handlebars. This poster hung in showrooms for Columbia Bicycles. He also drew a sketch of a wide-eyed child titled Injured Innocence which appeared in the February 9, 1878 edition of Harper’s Weekly. I am no art critic nor historian, so I am not totally sure what the sketch is trying to convey. At first, it seems that the drawing appears to call for better treatment of African Americans. The white man in the sketch has accused an African American child of stealing chickens, and the boy retorts that he does not have any chickens and should be treated with more respect. But when the boy’s hat is examined, there are three birds in it. I am not sure if these are the aforementioned chickens or not. Judging by his parents being abolitionists, it would seem that Cassius would be sympathetic to the suffering of blacks.

'The Art of Racing in the Rain,' a dog movie about golden retriever Enzo (Kevin Costner) and BFF Denny (Milo Ventimiglia), will make you cry. They don’t really consider the gambling angle since dogs can’t actually hold cards and shuffle chips. Original pieces of artwork by Coolidge has continued to appreciate in value as well. In 2005, two of his Dogs Playing Poker pieces were expected to fetch in the realm of $30,000 to $50,000 at auction.

You don’t need hire a painter to get a beautiful painting of your dog done anymore! This new App called ‘Waterlogue’ can turn any photo into a work of masterpiece. We tested out the App with some photos, because turning a photo of landscape into a great painting is one thing but turning a dog’s photo into a gorgeous painting is another. As dogs became more domesticated, they were shown as companion animals, often painted sitting on a lady's lap. Throughout art history, mainly in Western art, there is an overwhelming presence of dogs as status symbols and pets in painting. The dogs were brought to houses and were allowed to live in the house.

In the mid 1870s he started painting dogs in the situations that for years he had used to depict people. It is not know why he chose to paint dogs in these circumstances. Cash’s daughter agreed with his decisions to use dogs though. “You can’t imagine a cat playing poker…it doesn’t seem to go.” His break, however, came in 1903 when he signed a contract with the advertising company Brown & Bigelow located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Brown & Bigelow was an advertising company that specialized in “remembrance advertising.” This type of advertising consists of a business distributing objects branded with a company name and logo to its loyal customers. Although the details of their contract are unavailable, his daughter records that he was paid $10,000 (in early 1900s money) for two of the paintings. He eventually painted a total of sixteen different paintings of dogs in various situations for Brown & Bigelow. The sixteen paintings that Cash created for Brown & Bigelow are A Bachelor’s Dog, A Bold Bluff, Breach of Promise Suit, A Friend in Need, His Station and Four Aces, New Year’s Eve in Dogsville, One to Tie Two to Win, Pinched with Four Aces, Poker Sympathy, Post Mortem, The Reunion, Riding the Goat, Sitting up with a Sick Friend, Stranger in Camp, Ten Miles to a Garage, and Waterloo. The situations for these paintings ranged from arguing in court to a tea dance. The most popular scene was, of course, at a card table surrounded by alcohol, tobacco, and friends. Nine of the sixteen paintings Coolidge made for Brown & Bigelow contained dogs in that environment. Coolidge preferred large dogs to occupy his paintings. Bulldogs, collies, Great Danes, and St. Bernards were among his favorite canines. His art entered pop culture as hundreds-of-thousands of copies of his paintings were created as “advertising posters, calendars, and printers” and distributed throughout the country.

As a whole Cassius’s paintings encompass the male, middle class lifestyle of the early 1900s. They exhibit a male world, which females do not often enter. In fact, female pooches appear in only a couple of the paintings. During their rare appearances they are mainly serving drinks or interrupting the males. Only in New Year’s Eve in Dogsville do the female canines seem welcome. The dogs are, however, engaged in traditionally masculine actives—“drinking beer, playing cards, smoking cigars.” The dogs capture a male dominated world where the technicalities of how dogs’ paws hold cards or beer bottles can be ignored. Even Cassius’s own daughter, Marcella, recognizes the male dominated aspect of her father’s work. As she put it, “girls don’t like things like that. It was for boys and men.”

Although the paintings share some similarities, each one tells its own story. For example, in perhaps his most famous painting A Friend in Need, Coolidge portrays seven dogs engaged in a late night game of five-card stud that has spilled over into early morning. Surrounded by cards, chips, and beer the bulldog is passing the ace of clubs under the table to a dog, which would then have four aces. It appears the bulldog and his accomplice have been cheating for most of the night. Their piles of chips are quite large, while the other unsuspecting dogs are left only with a couple chips apiece. Cassius also has a high level of detail in this painting. Each dog is highly detailed and seems to have its own personality.

On a side note, Coolidge seems to like the idea of getting four aces. The quite rare poker hand appears in at least four of his paintings: A Friend in Need, His Station and Four Aces, Pinched with Four Aces, and A Stranger in Camp. In A Stranger in Camp, however, the four aces have been beaten by a straight flush. Perhaps a world where it is common for dogs to surround a poker table, the coveted four-ace poker hand also arises more often.

Dogs Gambling Painting Meaning Definition

In other paintings Cassius had stories that spanned over several paintings. A Bold Bluff and Waterloo depict the drama of an entire hand of poker. The saga begins in A Bold Bluff where the dogs are in the middle of a poker hand. The dogs have already laid down their bets and are now revealing their hands. The last hand is revealed in Waterloo with the excitement of a dog collecting a big pile of chips from a successful bluff, at the expense of the other dogs’ pride. Unfortunately, I can not continue describing all of Cassius’s famous paintings. My words would not do them justice. Like any art, look at the painting in person for a true appreciation of its beauty and detail.

Other paintings by Coolidge include a scene of people sitting around a poker table called A Poker Game, an excited poker player collecting his winnings called The Winner, Dog Playing the Fiddle, a family of dogs singing around a piano titled A Dog Family, Portrait of a Girl and Her Doll, a sick dog laying in bed named Sick in Bed, a scene of a lion titled A Monarch, two men fishing titled Two Fishermen, and a dog chewing on a book titled Eating His Words. It is not clear whether Coolidge named these paintings, or if they were attached to the paintings when they were sold. Despite this variety in types of paintings, which does include many dogs, perhaps Coolidge was always destined to paint his poker dogs. “His paintings of people look like dogs,” commented Moira Harris, an art historian in St. Paul Minnesota. Predisposition to dogs is not necessarily a bad thing, especially in Coolidge’s case.

Dogs Playing Poker, by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, refers collectively to an 1894 painting, a 1903 series of sixteen oil paintings commissioned by Brown & Bigelow to advertise cigars, and a 1910 painting.^[1] All eighteen paintings in the overall series feature anthropomorphized dogs, but the eleven in which dogs are seated around a card table have become well known in the United States as examples of kitsch art in home decoration. Depictions and reenactments of the series have appeared in many films, television shows, theater productions, and other popular culture art forms.

Critic Annette Ferrara has described Dogs Playing Poker as 'indelibly burned into ... the American collective-schlock subconscious ... through incessant reproduction on all manner of pop ephemera'.^[2]

The first painting, Coolidge's 1894 Poker Game, sold for $658,000 at a 2015 auction.^[3]

Coolidge paintings[edit]

The title of Coolidge's original 1894 painting is Poker Game.

The titles in the Brown & Bigelow series are:

• A Bachelor's Dog – reading the mail
• A Bold Bluff – poker (originally titled Judge St. Bernard Stands Pat on Nothing)^[4]
• Breach of Promise Suit – testifying in court
• A Friend in Need (1903) – poker, cheating
• His Station and Four Aces (1903) – poker
• New Year's Eve in Dogville – ballroom dancing
• One to Tie Two to Win – baseball
• Pinched with Four Aces – poker, illegal gambling
• Poker Sympathy – poker
• Post Mortem – poker, camaraderie
• The Reunion – smoking and drinking, camaraderie
• Riding the Goat – Masonic initiation
• Sitting up with a Sick Friend (1905) – poker, gender relations
• Stranger in Camp – poker, camping
• Ten Miles to a Garage – travel, car trouble, teamwork
• A Waterloo (1906) – poker (originally titled Judge St. Bernard Wins on a Bluff)^[4]

These were followed in 1910 by a similar painting, Looks Like Four of a Kind. Other Coolidge paintings featuring anthropomorphized dogs include Kelly Pool, which shows dogs playing kelly pool.

Some of the compositions in the series are modeled on paintings of human card-players by such artists as Caravaggio, Georges de La Tour, and Paul Cézanne.^[4]

On February 15, 2005, the originals of A Bold Bluff and Waterloo were auctioned as a pair to an undisclosed buyer for US $590,400.^[5] The previous top price for a Coolidge was $74,000.^[6] In 2015, Poker Game sold for $658,000, currently the highest price paid for a Coolidge.

In popular culture[edit]

• In the TV sitcom Cheers, Sam Malone loves the paintings (in particular one of Dogs Playing Blackjack) while his more sophisticated lover, Diane Chambers, hates them. Sam says that he sees something new every time he looks at it.
• The set for the TV show Roseanne had a reproduction of one of the paintings in Roseanne and Dan's bedroom.
• The cover of the 1981 album, Moving Pictures, by Rush, features A Friend in Need as one of the three pictures being moved.
• In the 1984 play The Foreigner, a character complains that she doesn't want to be in her motel room because there is a 'Damn picture on the wall of some dogs playin' poker.'
• In the 1985 film Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, slobbish police officer Vinnie Schtulman (Peter Van Norden) has a framed print of Waterloo and, below it, an unframed print of Pinched With Four Aces (which features four dogs in old-fashioned police uniforms raiding a poker game).
• The animated television series The Simpsons has made several references to the paintings, such as in 'Treehouse of Horror IV' (1993) when Homer is driven to screaming insanity simply by looking at the surrealness of the painting.^[7]
• The music video for Snoop Dogg's 1993 song, 'What's My Name', depicts dogs playing craps while smoking cigars and wearing sunglasses.
• Dogs Playing Poker TV ads were aired during ESPN Sunday Night Football during the 1998 and 1999 NFL seasons.
• The 1998 season four episode 'Sinking Ship' of the TV series NewsRadio spoofs the 1997 film Titanic. As the characters are shown fleeing the sinking ship/broadcasting studio they dump famous artworks but hold on to a Dogs Playing Poker, which a character claims is a 'great picture'.
• In the 1999 film The Thomas Crown Affair, Banning believes she finds a stolen Claude Monet painting in Crown's house. On expert examination it turns out to be a fake painted over a copy of Poker Sympathy, a Dogs Playing Poker canvas.
• In a 2000 episode of the TV series That '70s Show, 'Hunting', Dogs Playing Poker is parodied by the characters taking the places of the dogs.
• In an episode of Animaniacs, a young Pablo Picasso's artistic frustration is demonstrated by his producing a DPP painting.
• In an episode of White Collar the main protagonist, who is considered an expert on art, jokes about hanging a DPP on a wall.
• In an episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog, Courage goes into a DPP painting and picks up an untouched card hand. He laughs and puts it down, which shocks the other dogs upon seeing that the hand is a royal flush. Courage is then kicked out of the painting by one of the dogs.
• In an episode of My Gym Partner's a Monkey, Adam is told to look inside his brain, and what he see is reminiscent of a Dogs Playing Poker painting.
• In the Lilo & Stitch: The Series 2003 episode 'Finder', Stitch (who was adopted by Lilo as a 'dog') plays a game of poker with his experiment 'cousins' with cookies in place of poker chips.
• In a The Far Side cartoon a homeless artist lies in the street, surrounded by unsold paintings similar to DPP but depicting other animals such as giraffes, bugs, chickens, and gators. The caption recalls that someone said, 'Hey, have you ever tried dogs playing poker'?
• In the 2003 film, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, a number of dog characters in the series are seen playing poker at Yosemite Sam's casino.
• In the 2004 remake of Around the World in 80 Days, Monique has a painting of Dogs Playing Poker in her sketchbook.
• In the 2005 Suite Life of Zack and Cody episode 'Hotel Inspector', London tells Maddie that she saw a painting of dogs playing poker, and that she wants Maddie to throw her dog a poker-themed party. When Maddie tells her the dogs weren't really playing poker, London replies, 'If they weren't playing poker, then how did the dalmatian win all the money?'
• In Wizards of the Coast's Magic: The Gathering 2004 Arena league, a card 'Mise' portrays dogs playing Magic.^[8]
• In the 2005 video game Psychonauts, when a player revisits the stage Black Velvetopia after completing it, Edgar Teglee´s mental projection and the dog artists that inhabit his mind will appear in the hub playing poker. Talking to Edgar in the Asylum will also trigger a new dialogue, 'Arent we all just dogs playing poker?' ^[9]
• In the 2006 Family Guy episode 'Saving Private Brian', Mayor West is discovered playing poker with dogs. In the episode 'Road to Rhode Island', Stewie comments on the Dogs Playing Poker paintings hanging on a wall, and suggests that since Jesus is alone in one of the other paintings, the dogs should invite him to their card game.
• In the TV series Boy Meets World, Eric is cleaning out the garage when he finds one of the Dogs Playing Poker paintings, and shows his parents.
• In the 2009 animated film Up, several dog characters are briefly seen playing poker, using a pile of Milk-Bones as poker chips.
• In 'Lawnmower Dog', a 2013 episode of the animated series Rick and Morty, five intelligent dogs play poker and smoke cigars while using their advanced robotic suits.
• In the 2016 film, The Accountant, the paintings are discussed by the lead characters. Later, a copy of A Friend in Need is used as a cover to hide a Jackson Pollock painting.
• In the 2018 television series Disenchantment episode 'Love's Tender Rampage', the characters walk past a shop in which dogs are playing poker.
• In the 2019 Mickey Mouse episode titled 'You, Me, and Fifi,' Goofy, Pluto, and several other Disney dog-themed characters play a card game similar to poker, but is revealed to be Go Fish when Goofy cries out 'GO FISH'.
• In the 2019 animated film Toy Story 4, a painting of Charles Muntz and the dogs from the 2009 film Up playing poker can be seen at the antiques store.^[10]
• In the 2019 Carmen Sandiego season one episode 5 'The Duke of Vermeer Caper', Zack mocks Princess Cleo's assistant as 'His idea of art is probably a painting of dogs playing poker!'.
• Snoop Dogg references the painting in the album cover to his 2019 album, I Wanna Thank Me
• In the 2020 Ray Donovan season seven episode 'Passport and a Gun', Jim Sullivan rewards young Ray for his successful debut as a debt collector with a valued and framed Dogs Playing Poker painting, A Friend in Need.
• In the science fiction book and audio book Home Front, in the Expeditionary Force series, the advanced Elder artificial intelligence owns one of the original paintings, although they discuss that there are 11 paintings.

See also[edit]

Dogs Gambling Painting Meaning Symbolism

• Laying Down the Law, 1840 painting

References[edit]

1. ^'Dogs Playing Poker'. Ooo Woo – Complete Dog Resource. 2008. Archived from the original on April 11, 2017. Retrieved September 1, 2006.^{[unreliable source?]}
2. ^Ferrara, Annette (April 2008). 'Lucky Dog!'. Ten by Ten Magazine. Chicago: Tenfold Media. Archived from the original on March 27, 2008. Retrieved September 1, 2006.
3. ^'That Dogs Playing Poker Painting Just Sold for Over $650,000'. GQ.
4. ^ ^abcMcManus, James. 'Play It Close to the Muzzle and Paws on the Table', The New York Times (December 3, 2005).
5. ^'A New York auction offers artistic treats for dog lovers', San Jose Mercury News (Feb 11, 2005).
6. ^''Dogs Playing Poker' sell for $590K'. CNN Money. February 16, 2005. Retrieved September 11, 2006.
7. ^'Dogs Playing Poker in the Simpsons — DogsPlayingPoker.org'. www.dogsplayingpoker.org.
8. ^https://img.scryfall.com/cards/large/en/pal04/10.jpg?1517813031
9. ^https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/95e23f08-ed3c-4089-8d44-05ac6c0d5833/d4lqo3o-0905aab9-6b7e-445c-846d-9b3cd9e00fe5.png/v1/fill/w_900,h_540,q_80,strp/dogs_playing_poker_by_edgar_teglee_d4lqo3o-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NTQwIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvOTVlMjNmMDgtZWQzYy00MDg5LThkNDQtMDVhYzZjMGQ1ODMzXC9kNGxxbzNvLTA5MDVhYWI5LTZiN2UtNDQ1Yy04NDZkLTliM2NkOWUwMGZlNS5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9OTAwIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmltYWdlLm9wZXJhdGlvbnMiXX0.shjX-l7IKxrHirGsn8igCpkrmqfzZcntxRZrlaY-glc
10. ^''Toy Story 4': Pixar Reveals Easter Eggs Buried in the Film's Antique Store'. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2020-01-20.

Dogs Gambling Painting Meaning Dictionary

Further reading[edit]

• Harris, Maria Ochoa. 'It's A Dog's World, According to Coolidge', A Friendly Game of Poker (Chicago Review Press, 2003).

External links[edit]

• Media related to Dogs Playing Poker at Wikimedia Commons