Klaverjassen is a Medium of Artistic Expression

 Though some may interpret “winning earnestly” as a means to justify psyching a player out of his or her game that is absolutely not the case. The integral part of Klaverjassen that makes it such an awesome game to play is the integrity players exhibit at the game’s most crucial moments. The game is all about the enjoyment of the human spirit through the spirit of competition and good sportsmanship not through intimidation.

As stated before, winning earnestly doesn’t involve any sort of smack talk or trash talk. This means that aside from experience, players are only left with skill and strategy as their only means to win the game. Remember, though it may be tempting to psych players out of their game, it is only the most inexperienced, unskilled and dim witted of players who resort to using smack talking or trash talking to tip the game in their favor. Winning at Klaverjassen with such methods only shows people who the real loser is. Such methods only yield empty victories and if one wants to really win the game one must treat the game as an art form.

You might wonder at how Klaverjassen can be an art form when in fact it is neither a sculpture nor a painting but a game. Though that may be all true, such notions of art are deficient and imperfect. Remember, art is created when an artist creates a beautiful object, like the abovementioned sculptures and paintings. However, it can also be created when the artist produces a stimulating experience deemed to have artistic merits, like the performing arts of music, theater and dance.

Though one may argue that Klaverjassen is a game and not a song, a play or even a dance. Klaverjassen is an art form essentially because it shares many of the indispensable characteristics of classical art forms that make them art forms. To win at Klaverjassen, one requires exclusive commitment, sturdy as any songwriter’s, actor’s, or dancer’s dedication, as tough a preparation as any painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is the having to do with a blank canvas, cold marble, bare compositions, empty scripts and vacant choreography, compared to the human spirit? Klaverjassen is an art form whose medium is the human spirit and we the players are the artists!