Great (Chess) Art Begins Where (Chess) Grammar Ends

I thought you were going to criticize the lack of proper grammar in this forum.

As a non native english speaker, I think that an over worrieness about this issue would lead to paralysis.

Therefore you should concentrate more on conveying meaning than on whether your sentences are grammaticaly correct.

Sorry...will keep quoting from that great book!

While I feel chess can contain artistic elements - that is, it has an aesthetic side - I don't feel chess is art.  Picasso was a child prodigy who painted fairly realistic portraits and such in his youth . . . which is to say he was a master of technique even as a child.    According to his granddaughter's memoirs, Picasso claimed: "At eight, I was Raphael . . . it took me a whole lifetime to paint like a child."   This tells me that in art technique is like a tool but a minor one (maybe even a disposable one) compared to insight, creativity and probably certain non-tangible elements I'm not even aware exist.   Truth in art has no confines. 

In chess technique can't be dismissed so easily since what is inherent to the nature of chess and absent from art is the element of competition - ars gratia artis perhaps, but chess is ultimately about mate.... making technique of prime importance... and creativity in chess only survives within the framework of rules, internal truth and the techniques that utilize those things. 

Yes, that is why it won a "Book of the Year Award"......it is one of the best chess books ever written.

Suppose Tal did not learn chess as a Relationist.  He did not learn Relational Grammar of Chess as his first language, let's say.  He learned how the pieces move.

Yet he still created many beautiful works of art in chess.

Senior Patzer, yes, the cream rises to the top.

Tal had coaches and trainers who transmitted to him their love for the game, and who loved him as a person and as a player.

How he learned chess, I have no idea......

It was a hypothetical.  I'm just saying that it's likely that there are some fantastic and artistic chess players who did not have Relations as a foundational grammar in learning the language and game of chess.

I like the thesis, it's just that I'm not sure that it stands up empirically.

I agree with you. Real talent is irrepressible.

At the same time, RoaringPawn makes a good point.

In my case, I would have benefited from both: a proper introduction to the relationship between time, space and force, and a good coaching system, to both introduce me to the richness of chess heritage, and maximize my talent.

But, I believe in destiny, and I KNOW it was not my destiny to become an IM or GM, even though I had the necessary talent, and could play games like this one:

https://www.chess.com/blog/kamalakanta/the-best-game-of-my-life-being-in-the-quotzonequot

What a game Master Kamalakanta!

Played intuitively!

To me, by analogy, chess grammar is about relationships between pieces (morphology) and meaning (semantics) arising from the structure they create (chess rules don't tell us anything about piece relations and purpose).

Now one may argue you don't need to master grammar to be successful.

"The Douanier Rousseau got enough technique from somewhere to make his jungle shine in the moonlight, and Renoir's belated thirst for schooling merely prove that if he had studied in the first place it would have been a good thing," James.

The same in chess, you may get acquainted with chess structure and function early from your teacher, or you can do it on your own the hard way over much longer period of time (think Gladwell's 10,000 hours to become an expert, versus Dr Lasker who claimed it would take him only 200 hours to bring even a no talent to the Master level).

Now, how are art and creativity linked to all this? Unfortunately, we are still not quite clear about the nature of art. For Plato it is imitation, for Tolstoy it is the expression of emotion, for Kant it is the interplay of forms (which may have some connection with the previously said).

But to be really creative, things are a bit more clear. No matter how enormous chess gifts a child may have, they won’t be able to contribute to chess to the fullest without learning the basics, its grammar. Once young Mozart had learned the basics, he was off for his mission of a genius. And he wouldn't have been able to break the basics in an interesting way, unless he was able to keep them if required.

Every student of Linguists that is at least 40 years old and studied in Europe, knows that "chess" is an evanescent, but persistent presence in 20th century Linguistics (both continental and Soviet). 

Arguably, one of the main factors in determining the popularity of the 'phanton of chess' in lingustics and in language studies was the long lasting dominance of the structuralist paradigm, which defined  language as a system of relations (as opposed to, say, a bag of sweets) and studied language under this perspective (or rather with this 'method', some say).

And indeed chess itself was instrumental in bringing about the idea of studying language not as a collection of linguistic atoms, but as a complex system where only relations count.

The first structuralists in Linguistics (for example the so called 'Schools' of Prague' and 'of Copenaghen'), based their works on the pioneering ideas set forth by a Swiss linguist, called Ferdinand de Saussure, who didn't publish much during his life.

However, after his death, a group of students reconstructed his Courses, based on the notes they had taken during the lessons they had attended, and then published the work in a famous (for Linguistics students) book called Cours de Linguistique Générale (1916).

It is in the Cours that the most famous, influential and controversial analogy between language and chess can be found:

« Une partie d’échecs est comme une réalisation artificielle de ce que la langue nous présente sous une forme naturelle. Voyons la chose de plus près.

D’abord un état du jeu correspond bien à un état de la langue. La valeur respective des pièces dépend de leur position sur l’échiquier, de même que dans la langue chaque terme a sa valeur par son opposition avec tous les autres termes.

En second lieu, le système n’est jamais que momentané ; il varie d’une position à l’autre. Il est vrai que les valeurs dépendent aussi et surtout d’une convention immuable, la règle du jeu, qui existe avant le début de la partie et persiste après chaque coup. Cette règle admise une fois pour toutes existe aussi en matière de langue ; ce sont les principes constants de la sémiologie. [1]

Enfin, pour passer d’un équilibre à l’autre, ou ‑ selon notre terminologie ‑ d’une synchronie à l’autre, le déplacement d’une pièce suffit ; il n’y a pas de remue‑ménage général. Nous avons là le pendant du fait diachronique avec toutes ses particularités. En effet :

a) Chaque coup d’échecs ne met en mouvement qu’une seule pièce ; de même dans la langue les changements ne portent que sur des éléments isolés.

b) Malgré cela le coup a un retentissement sur tout le système ; il est impos­sible au joueur de prévoir exactement les limites de cet effet. Les changements de valeurs qui en résulteront seront, selon l’occurrence, ou nuls, ou très graves, ou d’importance moyenne. Tel coup peut révolutionner l’ensemble de la partie et avoir des conséquences même pour les pièces momentanément hors de cause. Nous venons de voir qu’il en est exactement de même pour la langue.

c) Le déplacement d’une pièce est un fait absolument distinct de l’équilibre précédent et de l’équilibre subséquent. Le changement opéré n’appartient à aucun de ces deux états : or les états sont seuls importants.

Dans une partie d’échecs, n’importe quelle position donnée a pour caractère singulier d’être affranchie de ses antécédents ; il est totalement indifférent qu’on y soit arrivé par une voie ou par une autre ; celui qui a suivi toute la partie n’a pas le plus léger avantage sur le curieux qui vient inspecter l’état du jeu au moment critique; pour décrire cette position, il est parfaitement inutile de rappeler ce qui vient de se passer dix secondes auparavant.

Tout ceci s’applique également à la langue et consacre la distinction radicale du diachronique et du synchronique. La parole n’opère jamais que sur un état de langue, et les change­ments qui interviennent entre les états n’y ont eux‑mêmes aucune place.

Il n’y a qu’un point où la comparaison soit en défaut, le joueur d’échecs a l’intention d’opérer le déplacement et d’exercer une action sur le système; tandis que la langue ne prémédite rien, c’est spontanément et fortuitement que ses pièces à elles se déplacent ‑ ou plutôt se modifient. […] Pour que la partie d’échecs ressemblât en tout point au jeu de la langue, il faudrait supposer un joueur inconscient ou inintelligent. »

[Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale, Payot]

Thanks @bumiputra for the comment and Saussure!

Many insightful thoughts there.

Here is just one confirming the fallacy of teaching the moves first on Day One:

Le déplacement d’une pièce est un fait absolument distinct de l’équilibre précédent et de l’équilibre subséquent. Le changement opéré n’appartient à aucun de ces deux états : or les états sont seuls importants.

What matters is position, functional structure. A move (or a sequence of moves) only serves to change present position (état) favorably (with a purpose in mind) in order to reach the desired position.

All understanding and direction of action comes from seeing these structures. We see the moves, which is kind of deceptive, the real thing, real action is in the mind's eye, in how we mentally structure the structure on the board and how we want to change it.

Obviously, we need to teach the concept of chessmen power and structure together with the moves from Day One (something the Belgrade method does).

Hey guys, ghost is lost 🤣