I have no idea where else you could find information about the history of this painting (Google is your friend), but I find the positioning of the pieces alone fascinating. Despite the realism or lack-thereof, it looks like they enjoyed using each of their minor pieces in tandem. Both the knights and the rooks are within one square of each other. As the winning player is probably more tactically adept, you can see that his bishops are also working near each other, or were doing so until they split up. Also, now that the pieces have split up, we can see that the bishop on A6 is in danger.
Therefore, either I'm analyzing this too deeply, or the painting was symbolic in the concept of "united we stand, divided we fall". Using chess to analyze the battlefield tactics in medieval warfare (definitely thinking Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Medieval: Total War as examples), you can tell that the knights liked to stick together for more offensive cavalry charges. The rooks and bishops could use more long-range attacks (think archers). The queen was originally only able to move one square at a time diagonally, meaning she was even less mobile than the king himself.
The actual history of this game is fascinating, not only in its evolution but in its attempt at realism. After an elaborate and educational trip to wikipedia, I find that the pieces are not only vastly different to what they were over a thousand years ago, but also misnamed in some cases. Before I looked it up, I assumed the bishop was supposed to represent some supernatural mage or cleric. In actuality, the name "bishop" comes from a long line of names which loosely translated to "runner" or "messenger".
It saddens me that this thread hasn't received much attention over 6 years but I can tell you that it interested me enough to go on this long train of thought about how chess is tied to realistic battlefield maneuvers and tactics. Maybe I'll find a way to bring more attention to this topic because I love it! And to think, it all started when I went to the wikipedia article for chess, wondering about the historical symbolism of the pieces... my ADD kicked into overdrive when I saw that painting!
) I have always been fascinated by its ability to distill the timeless military wisdom of the ages down to their essentials, despite its lack of a FOW (Fog of War), and the heavy abstraction of the combat. That is what makes chess so beguiling. I am also a gamer and it never ceases to amaze me that, at a fundamental level, almost every strategy game I have ever played on the PC is just an overcomplication of chess!
Chess fascinates me because it is not only the greatest medieval game ever (by "medieval game" I mean a game that stylistically incorporates medieval elements such as "knights" and castle-like "Rooks"), but is also a game that existed in that glorious era. After all, there are lots of "medieval games" (e.g., World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Medieval: Total War, etc.), but only Chess can actually claim to have been played by actual knights and kings of that historical period! When you stop and think about it, it is an awe-inspiring realization to understand that any chess player has a direct gaming kinship to those men and women of one of the most iconic periods in human history.
Case in point, this painting:
What we have here is a medieval painting of two Templar Knights - yes, those Templar knights - playing a game of chess. Incredible! I love this painting and have it as my desktop background.
It's a little difficult to tell, but I think the chess position in the picture is thus:
White would be the knight on the left. If I have rendered this position correctly, I believe the knight playing as White is admonishing his adversary for checking his king. According to Chessmaster, Black has a mate in three:
1.Rf1 Bc3+ 2.Rb2 Re1+ 3.Rxe1 Qxe1# 0-1
Again, if I rendered it correctly, the painting seems to depict a ficticious situation as I see no way for the Queen to have slid into her check below the two rooks. So, it would seem the board position is more of a puzzle than an actual game.
Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate this image again since I first downloaded it. Does anybody know where I can find out a little more about the history of this bit of medieval art?