Project 2- Dutch painting Research + Analysis

Cardplayers in a Sunlit Room c. 1658

By De Hooch

The painting has De Hooch's signature at the bottom right corner.

The painting was painted when De Hooch was in Delft.

The painting shows De Hooch's skill on how to handle light's distance

and its appearance on different surfaces.

The window curtain, the tiles and walls in the shadowy interior

and the fully sun-lit courtyard...

He also focus on lighting details like the wine glass the man is holding.

Narrative of the painting:

I focus on the man who is drinking wine.

The person who has the back facing us contrasts with the whole painting.

It is the darkest part of the painting.

He is also nearly at the centre of the painting where our eyes lay on

when we first see this painting.

The person looks like he is in charge of the situation,

watching other people playing the cards.

We can’t see his facial expression but we can tell that he is enjoying himself

or trying to enjoy with himself in this environment

by his calm/serene action of drinking a glass of wine.

Although the colour of his figure is dark

but this does not gives us any negative impression towards him.

We lay our eyes automatically on him because of the colour

and also by the composition of him

- he is kind of in the “middle of the painting.”

But we can also say he might be recovering his mood,

by the broken pipe and the card on the floor.

It is possible he just lost a game and was too angry to play

so he express his anger with the pipe and the cards on the floor.

By drinking a glass of wine he is trying to calm himself down.

Although he is sitting with the other three people

it looks like he is a bit distanced from them

- by the size of his figure and the colour use on him

(contrast with the table and the other three figures),

Hooch isolates him with these techniques.

The lighting in this painting is interesting and multiple presence:

Through the curtain, the reflection on the floor(of the room and the courtyard)

and the refraction of the wine glass Hooch depicts different statues of lighting in this painting.

Not much curve or meaningless messiness in the painting,

everything is in order and angular.

Even the clothes hang on the wall does not have any extra (lack of) draping.

Main light source comes from the open door and some from the window.

The strong lighting from outside is shown by the sharp reflection on the floor

of the intersection between the courtyard and the room.

The composition of the tiles on the floor shows the distance, the trace and the level of the light.