Dogs Playing Poker Painting Meaning

The dogs even have dogs as pets confirming there is no other world out there.

Dogs playing poker painting meaning. Them playing poker games is as normal as thinking that the clocks and painting within the paintings would have been created by canines also. Dogs playing poker is not one painting but a series. The writer is satirical in that he has used dogs to represent men in his paintings. You simply get what you see.

The painter cassius marcellus coolidge 1844 1934 created a series of paintings of these dogs playing poker beginning in 1903. But it wasn t until 1903 when coolidge signed a contract with the minnesota based promotional firm brown bigelow that his success was assured. Dogs playing poker no elitist shaming or social innuendo. Then in 1903 the 59 year old artist started working for the.

The art work depicts seven dogs playing poker in a light blue room. The goat riding ritual is evidently a well known fraternal rite within freemasonry. In his most famous painting above a bulldog is passing a card to his friend a clearly unsportsmanlike action. His earliest paintings of dogs playing poker dating back to the 1870s decorated cigar boxes and served as a way for tobacco companies to distinguish themselves from their near identical competitors.

In fact to true dogs playing poker aficionados the freemason connection is old hat. It is a painting that shows a lot of leisure as the dogs play poker. The series includes the artist s original poker game 1894 painting along with 16 other oil paintings commissioned in 1903 by brown bigelow to advertise cigars and an additional 1910 painting. Coolidge s involvment with the masonic lodge in his town of antwerp new york is part of his official biography.

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. They were used for promotional printed items by the firm brown bigelow. 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.