Billiards: Art

It could break lamps and injure the player.
Gas lamps were abandoned in the early 1900s in favour of electric lamps, which are still used today but do not eliminate the risk when the massé is said to be perpendicular. In 1912, shards of glass fell into the skull and face of French world champion Edouard Roudil (1879-1971) (****), author of the book 'Billard. Le Massé' (*****).

4. "HIOLLE and spin".

The ‘Dictionnaire Technologique ou Nouveau Dictionnaire Universel des Arts et Métiers’... of 1831 (tome 18, pp. 69-71, Thomine Bookshop, Paris, France

considers HIOLLE (1820 - 1982) as one of the best manufacturers of billiard cues in 1831.

He mentions that he:

a) protected the small end of the billiard cue from possible deterioration by providing it with an ivory ferrule, topped with a small very hard leather plate and then with a calfskin tip which at the time was the best to produce spin to the player's ball.

....[x]

b) also covered half of the ivory plate of the large end (= butt end) of some cues of the time with this skin, as shown below.

....[x]............[x]

When the butt-end was still used for playing by sliding it across the cloth on one of its two triangles (******) , this made it possible for the player to choose the appropriate material for giving the cue ball some spin or not.

5. Billiards and Art.

a) The BOULLE School (named after Louis XIV's famous cabinetmaker) at the service of billiards.

Two cartouches (decorative frames used in the late 1800s) on the cue butt, probably made by the same cabinetmaker.

b) Art Nouveau (1885 to 1905).

"Jeu de Billard - Femme" A.S.O. 'ART NOUVEAU' postcard showing a female billiard player and accessories of the time.

       c) Art Deco (1910 à 1930).

       Two carvings on butts

       1) in gilded wood which used to belong to the Hénin family.

2) in red rosewood from the G. Caro Manufacture.

A cue, the butt of which probably represents a stylised bee (*******).

d) Special mention for HIOLLE cues, considered to be the best of the end of the 19th century.

1) wood and mother-of-pearl marquetry, signed HIOLLE (late 1800s).

2) remarkable EIGHT point splice.

e) Exceptional marquetry for exceptional cues.

Extracts of marquetry on wooden butts, representing people (hunters, dancers and a woman wearing a hat) in colour.

More details can be found in other parts of this site.

6. Billiards according to Einstein (1879 - 1955)

who would have said or written:

“Billiards is the supreme art of anticipation.

It is not a game but an artful sport

which requires, in addition to a good physical condition,

the logical reasoning of a chess player

and the steady touch of a concert pianist.”

From March to September 1933 Einstein lived in the "Villa Savoyarde" in Coq-sur-Mer (Belgium) where he was visited by Queen Élisabeth of Belgium. They already knew each other and sometimes played the violin together. He also met a famous Belgian painter, James Ensor, and other important people.

7. The American writer Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

a fervent billiards player.

Here he is (circa 1907 - 1910) with Louise Paine, the daughter of his biographer

and alone in 1908.

Below, the billiard room of the Mark Twain House, Hartfort, Connecticut.

8. Books: two detective stories among many others in this category.

.....[iii]

For more detective stories: .

9. Films :

a) "The Hustler" (director Robert Rossen, 1961), with Paul Newman

..[iii]. .

and Jackie Gleason.

b) "The Color of Money" (directed by Martin Scorsese, 1986), the sequel to "The Hustler", starring Paul Newman

and Tom Cruise.

c) "Another Man, Another Chance".

...[iii]

directed by Claude Lelouch (1937- ) in 1977.

d) "Mélodie en sous-sol" (= Any Number Can Win), directed by Henri Verneuil in 1963, where Jean GABIN meets Alain DELON at billiards, to be seen on YouTube.

Here they are

...[iv]

on the set of "Le Clan des Siciliens" (= The Sicilian Clan) in 1969, also by Director Verneuil.

10. Music.

A rare document (early 20th c.) featuring a billiard scene with ambience thanks to a brass band playing a "Two-step" tango by C. Cluyel, "the Revanche", from a piano score.

.........[iii]

11. Paintings : some styles.

a) a Biedermeier-style watercolour painted in 1846 by Franz ALT (1821-1914, Austria) showing a billiard room in a castle in Croatia.

b) "Ladies playing Billiards" (1869) an 'Academic Art Movement Painting' by French Charles-Edouard Boutibonne (1816-1897).

c) "The Game of Billiards under the reign of Louis XV)"(1855) by Jean Carolus (1814-1897), a Belgian impressionist painter.

d) "Billiards" created by impressionist painter Gustave CAILLEBOTTE (1848 - 1894, France) around 1875.

...[v]

(e) "The Night Café", painted in 1888 by the Dutch Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).

Self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh.

f) "The Billiard Players, 1920" painted by Varvana STEPANOVA (1894 - 1958, Lithuania), member of Constructivism, a Russian artistic movement.

....

g) "The Billiard Table", a series of seven paintings produced between 1944 and 1952 by Georges BRAQUE (1882 - 1963, France). All of them, in expressionist style, show a billiard table with several elements.

.[v]

12. "An Unusual Story".

For 25 years, Frances Anderson it is alleged that she won all her matches against women and therefore would never have offered the sum of 5,000 dollars that she had promised to any competitor who would have beaten her. When she died, it was finally revealed that she was in fact a man from Kansas, named Orie Anderson.

(For more details, click on ....and then, to return later, on the arrow...<---... top left).

(*) Teacher of Louis Edelin (1957 - ) (F), vice-world champion (see Kozoom).

(**) Lize Schrier (NL) won a tournament at the "Zielka" Billiard-café in Berlin (D) in 1922.

(***) Extract from: Kerkau Gottfried, Handbuch der Billardspielkunst. Ed. Grethlein & Co, Leipzig (D), 1908.

(****) Shamos Michaël, The New Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards. Lyons Press, New York (USA), 1999.

(*****) Roudil Edouard, Billard. Le massé. Imp. Paul Déhan, Montpellier, France, 1918.

(******) Note that a triangle is already seen on a billiard cue in a German watercolour, ca. 1745, see (Shamos Michaël, Le billard et le billard américain, Ed. Minerva, Paris - Genève,1992).

[iv] Excerpt from 'Fichier: Lino Ventura, Jean Gabin & Alain Delon - Le Clan des Siciliens.jpg', Wikipedia.