Perfect Imperfect

The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour

The Masterpiece Tour reflects the National Gallery’s commitment to ensuring its collection is shared and engaged with throughout the UK, enabling audiences to access a masterpiece in their own locality. Between 2021-23 the National Gallery is working in partnership with The Beacon Museum, Whitehaven, Carmarthenshire Museum and Oriel Davies, Newtown, to display three well-loved National Gallery paintings at each venue, creating new dialogues with works from these collections, contemporary artworks and local audiences.

Biographical

Jean-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) was born at the cusp of the eighteenth century in Paris, where he resided for the duration of his life. The son of a billiard table maker, he became a member of The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture at the age of 28, eventually achieving the prestigious position of Treasurer. Chardin was a devoted exponent of still life, even though this subject matter was considered the lowliest genre of painting and was therefore the least well-paid. 

At the mid-point in his career, perhaps spurred by the promise of better returns, Chardin switched to genre painting: scenes of ordinary people engaged in everyday activities. He treated such subjects exclusively for about fifteen years before reverting to still life in his final maturity. Though Chardin took inspiration from the celebrated 17th-century Dutch and Flemish painters of daily life, he never adopted the mocking tone often found in the work of his northern predecessors. Instead, his genre scenes were serious-minded and contemplative. Initially exploring a range of character-types and settings, his fascination with themes of play, childhood and adolescence eventually dominated his output. His remarkable depictions of children led to him receiving commissions to produce such works as portraits.

The Painting

Deep in thought, a card poised in one hand, a young boy considers his next move as the house of cards takes shape on the table before him. Absorbed in the careful process of building, he is uninterested in the gambling chip and coin, the remnants of an earlier, adult card game discarded on the table. We can gather little about his surroundings: the interior is sparse, though the shadow behind him indicates a light source from the upper left. Chardin’s signature appears, almost as if it were carved into the grey stone wall, at right above the table.

The subject of a boy building a house of cards was one that Chardin painted numerous times. In other versions (as shown on this panel) the sitter wears the simple clothes and apron of a servant. Here, elements of the boy’s costume indicate his elevated social status: the gold trim along the edges of his hat, the detachable velvet collar and the elaborate deep cuffs and large buttons on his coat. In fact, unlike the other versions, this painting is a portrait and was exhibited at the 1741 Salon – the Academy’s annual paintings exhibition in Paris – as “the son of M. Le Noir, amusing himself by making a castle of cards.”

Themes

In Chardin’s day, audiences would have been familiar with images of children building or destroying a house of cards, from works by painters of the previous century which had been popularised by print makers. This imagery, together with moralising captions found on the prints, often explicitly equated the house of cards with the ephemeral nature of childhood or with the fragility of life itself (as shown on this panel). However, unlike the heavily moralising overtones of earlier images, Chardin’s treatment of the subject invites viewers to take the scene at face value: a contemplative moment, a visual musing on the art of play, a vignette of childhood innocence. Shown in its early stages, with some cards folded to make it sturdier, the precarious nature of a house of cards is downplayed. The boy’s focussed expression and deliberate action, together with the pared-back interior, offer an image which is at once solemn and charming: a quiet celebration of patience, constructive thinking, and youthful ingenuity.

Perfect Imperfect

Museums spend a lot of time in the past. But you’d be surprised by just how much we care about the future. Chardin’s portrait explores themes of childhood and how quickly time passes. It also points to grown-up world concerns about future generations. 

Bringing the National Gallery Masterpiece Tour partnership to Carmarthenshire and giving people the chance to enjoy a masterpiece in their locality made us think about what we should do to preserve things for the future. 

Carmarthenshire’s museums have over forty-two thousand objects. It could be described as a museum of the ‘left overs’ of 50,000 years of human history. So, amongst this ‘jumble’ of history, how should our local museums choose ‘master pieces’ to pass on to future generations? 

Perfect Imperfect is a response. We’re asking you the question: what are the qualities an object must have to be preserved by a museum? This exhibition is an experimental space. So, we’ve looked to a different cultural tradition for a different perspective. 

Wabi Sabi is a Japanese world view based on three principles: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect. Wabi recognises that peace and contentment come from living a simple and frugal life. Sabi is about beauty that emerges with the passage of time. The age of an object tells its own story and deepens our emotional connection with it. It reminds us of our own mortality. 

The items in this exhibition embrace imperfection – shown as age, simplicity, roughness, oddity, damage, economy, and intimacy. We invite you to pause and take a moment to fully experience the here-and-now. 

Wabi Sabi has a place in education, promoting creative processes and experimentation, where mistakes are part of learning, and learners become more engaged and curious through those mistakes. So why are we asking this? In a modern world where false ideals often dominate young people’s everyday experience, we’re inviting you to look for a calmer and sustainable aesthetic ideal, for a more positive and healthful way of engaging with the world.