Poker Brought Out of Smoky Dens by Canines
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Born in 1844 to a family of abolitionist Quaker farmers, Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, nicknamed “Cash” by his friends and family, became an instantly recognized commercial artist with the series of Dogs Playing Poker he gave to the world. He is named after one of the most eloquent of orators against slavery, nicknamed “The Lion Of White Hall” as an anthropomorphic tribute to the township in which he lived. Mr. Coolidge (Cash) had no professional training in the arts whatsoever. Nonetheless, he was a very active artist, publishing drawings in papers before his twentieth birthday.
The paintings along one of his favorite themes, mastiffs and Saint Bernards engaged in the activities normally attributed to humans, began with a commission in 1903. Well-bred and well-behaved dogs drink alcoholic libations, smoke cigars and pipes, and play five-card draw poker in nine out of sixteen of the paintings. Generally they are pictured as furry masculine types in fur coats or warm suits sitting around a table in a cozy room with the only source of light being a lamp above the table.
These reasonably well-behaved gentlemen are members of an established, respectable class of town folk, who though certainly not stodgy, are quite proper enough. If you can conjure up Sergio Leone’s movie “Once Upon a Time in America,” you are in the right time period. But the artist is not focusing on the greed and dark violence of the illegal underground clubs depicted in Leone’s movie. He allows poker to come out of the darkness of all this into a more wholesome, mainstream faction of society where decent folk who may be wagering on a game, are certainly not into it for more than a few token pennies, and are indulging in a rare sip of whiskey and small pipe or cigar while their wives are away. By this time, poker was becoming a respectable and common pastime for most American males. It was no longer viewed as just as way to make a quick, risky and dangerous buck.
Respected members of society as early as 1875 gathered at large nocturnal poker sessions. Poker Chips was one of the publications dedicated to the game and most periodicals of the time included articles on poker in their content. Standard rules for playing draw-poker were unified and distributed among all the poker clubs beginning at the turn of the century. This was a first. It was even reported that baseball had lost its status as the national game.
Gradually, unrelated to any criminal associations, the ability to play poker and the ability to wield a gun became the staple talents of any real man. Men who played good poker were usually likewise good soldiers, good sheriffs, and good politicians. In the spring of 1918, in Europe, the game was the most popular mode of entertainment among Harry Truman and his two million troops. Truman perfected his draw and stud poker as an artillery officer. When the peace treaty was signed, waiting to be shipped home, he and his combat friends spent the time at endless games of poker which they continued even after arrival home.
At that time, the prevailing view was to equate the ability to take risks at the table, to bet big, play smart, and bluff, (profitably, of course!) to the ability to survive in battle, in dangerous occupations like law enforcement, or do any job requiring a good brain and strong muscles.
Cash Coolidge was around at a time that gave him every opportunity to observe the sort of person, the clothes, the card games and the milieu in which all of these elements came together in basement clubs that gave rise to the essence of his art. Through his art, which consisted of a vivid imagination and anthropomorphic humor, he created a representation of the life of the bourgeoisie at the time enjoying a game that had been around for more than 200 years.
The author is a full time online poker player and makes the majority of his income from his online play and rakeback at Power Poker. To sign up for a Rakeback account of your own visit Rakeback Solution.
categories: poker,gambling,games,card games,dogs,art,entertainment
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