Playing Card Art: Mechanical Romanticism – Queens by Iyan de Jesus

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Playing Card Art: Mechanical Romanticism – Queens by Iyan de Jesus

26 Nov

These four artworks are from a solo art show by Iyan de Jesus, Mechanical Romanticism (Makati; November 22, 2013). They are dedicated to four queens from a deck of playing cards and form the “Queens of Cards” Series. All queens were named in accordance with appropriate historical traditions existing for playing cards.

The Queen of Spades – Athena

Athena is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, just warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts and skill in Greek religion and mythology

The Queen of Hearts – Judith

The name Judith is the feminine form of Judah. Judith is the heroine of the Book of Judith. The book is a deuterocanonical book, included in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian Old Testament of the Bible, but excluded by Jews and assigned by Protestants to the Apocrypha. The book contains numerous historical anachronisms, which is why many scholars now accept it as non-historical. It has been considered a parable or perhaps the first historical novel.

The Queen of Clubs – Argine

Argine can be an anagram of regina, which is Latin for queen, or perhaps Argea, wife of Polybus and mother of Argus (Greek mythology).

The Queen of Diamonds – Rachel

Rachel is either biblical, historical or mythical (as a corruption of the Celtic Ragnel or Rganelle) woman.

Rachel as described in the Bible, is the favourite wife of Jacob, one of the three Biblical Patriarchs, and mother of Joseph and Benjamin.

There is an assumption that the King of Hearts represents Charles VII (was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1422 to 1461). Rachel can be the pseudonym of his mistress, Agnès Sorel, in this case.

There is also an assumption that the Jack (Knave) of Clubs represents Sir Lancelot. He was one of the Knights of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. Ragnelle was a wife of one of the Knights of the Round Table, Sir Gawain (was well known to be the most trustworthy friend of Sir Lancelot). Maybe all other court cards could also have some roots from the Arthurian legend. Modern interpretation of court cards is some mix of different historical bits.