Lacie Picone

Proffessor Ogden

5 April 2011

Early Modern Art Term paper: Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was born the son of Eugene and Lucie Duchamp, in Blainville, France,

July 28, 1887 (Stefani). He started painting in 1902 and one of his first works was Play (Stefani).

The small “india ink on paper, drawing,” in blacks and grays, is of a girl playing tennis. The

painting is crude and the figure is awkwardly positioned. The word “play?” is on the lower left

hand side of the painting. We can see in this painting, as well as the drawings and painting

afterwards, the education of a future artist. He attended the Academie Julian from 1904 to 1905

(Stefani). In 1905 he worked for a printer/engraver in Rouen, France, 1905 shortly after he

worked for Le Courier francais and Le Rire, Paris, France, 1905-10 as a cartoonist (Stefani).

During this time he painted with his brother, Jacques Villon, in Paris, 1906 and became

connected “with the Section d'Or or cubist artists' group at Puteaux, France, 1910” (Stefani).

Then in Paris, 1910, he exhibited the painting The Artist's Father in Salon d'Automne and

then again and at the New York Armory Show in 1913 (Stefani). This oil on canvas is of his

father relaxing in a chair. The colors in this painting are mostly local color, but some of the color

on his jacket, face, and beard are not local color. There is green on his arm and blue on the

breast, which shows him testing the waters in fauvism. The painting Nude Descending a

Staircase was exhibited at Salon des Independents in Paris, 1911. This painting reflects the

influence of cubism and futurism on artists of the time. The nude figure is fractured and

monochromatic, which is typical of analytical cubism. The figure is also repeated, as if it is in

motion from the left corner background across to the right corner foreground. This type of

motion is distinctive of futurism. These works as well as the later works of Duchamp show him

as influenced by fauvism and cubism especially. The “Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture

in the Philadelphia Museum of Art” by Ann Temkin, and others, states that the 1911 audience

did not receive Nude Descending a Staircase well. Critics did not understand it and therefore

people made fun of it. The author quotes,

“The American Art News offered a ten dollar reward to the first reader who could

"find the lady" within the jumble of interlocking planes and jagged lines, and

newspaper cartoonists had a field day with the painting, lampooning it with such

titles as "The Rude Descending the Staircase (Rush Hour at the Subway)" and the

memorable "Explosion in a Shingle Factory."

He even received criticism from his friends and brothers. “…[The] Salon des

Indépendants exhibition in Paris… had [originally] rejected his Nude Descending a Staircase,

No. 2. … on the grounds that ‘A nude never descends the stairs-a nude reclines’” (). Although

not socially accepted at the time, since then it has become a part of the development of

Duchamp.

It was not until 1913 that Duchamp started working with puns and jokes. It was during

this time we see the “Chocolate Grinder” in his sketches and studies. This piece of equipment

will eventually become part of The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large

Glass) in 1915 (Moure). This artwork was different from the cubist paintings that he had created

prior. The painting is mounted on glass, and the subject is a surreal mechanism. The bride on the

top half of The Large Glass seems to float above the grinder and bachelors. The mechanism
appears to have been built to move so that the “bachelors” would bob up and down. This motion

is comical, since the chocolate grinder in French culture is a metaphor for masturbation. In

“Marcel Duchamp” by Gloria Moure, she discusses The Large Glass and its meaning as a

physical mechanism, but then abandons this description.

“The sexes most probably parallel the ideas of unity and fragmentation (female

and male), whilst the contrast of language and imagery in the two spaces

illustrates the nub of the drama in all its grandeur, for in the desire to know

aroused by the erotic perception of every dimension, even the smallest, lies the

nature of human creativity” (Moure 19).

According to “Dada: In the Collection of Museum of Modern Art,” the original Large

Glass was not shattered but instead broken when transported from New Haven to New York

(Umland 124). The Large Glass was part of the dada movement and his mature style. According

to the Oxford English Dictionary dada is, “Applied to an international movement in art and

literature, characterized by a repudiation of traditional conventions and reason, and intended to

outrage and scandalize.” The movement was playing with the idea of “anti-art.” Duchamp is

considered one of the creators of this movement.

Ready-mades and Ready-mades aided were another staple in the Duchamp art career.

These pieces of art are items selected by the artist to be displayed as the artist found them or

minimally altered. One of the statements made by the ready-made or read-made aided is “anti-

art.” The object itself was a joke on the art world, as well as, sometimes being a joke itself. “…

Alliterations and unexpected titles are an essential feature of a good number of Ready-mades…”

(Moure 17). One of the first Ready-mades was the Bottle Rack, and The Fresh Widow. However,
the most infamous of the ready-mades is Fountain, because of the controversy over “real art.”

Patrick West wrote about Fountain in "Duchamp and his urinal: he was just taking the piss." He

recognizes that the opposition to the Ready-made is that there is no understanding of his past

works leading up to this piece, as well as, the misunderstanding of the point Fountain is making.

“He sought to undermine the notion of the sacred uniqueness of the artistic object, asking: If you

put a mass-reproduced toilet in a gallery and sign it "R Mutt", does that make it art?” (West). He

said that Duchamp’s Ready-mades, since first place on exhibition, have been conversed about

and viewed by mass audiences which made it considered art by the public. West also mentions

that more recent artists use Duchamp’s point and their work was not well received. “In 1917, to

question "what is art" by placing a prosaic object in a gallery was brave and novel; to do so in

2004 is tiresomely predictable” (West). He finishes with saying that current artists have “the

attitude” that Duchamp instituted with the Ready-mades and Fountain.

In “The glory of Fountain, Marcel Duchamp's ground-breaking ‘moneybags piss pot’”

Jerry Saltz shows the comical meaning and history surrounding The Fountain. He says that the

urinal was mass produced “from the J.L. Mott Iron Works at 118 Fifth Avenue;” Duchamp laid it

on its back and signed it “R. Mutt 1917” (Saltz). Saltz explains:

“The name is a play on its commercial origins and also on the famous comic strip

of the time, Mutt and Jeff.... In German, armut means poverty, although Duchamp

said the R stood for Richard, French slang for ‘moneybags,’ which makes

Fountain, or ‘moneybags piss pot,’ a kind of scatological golden calf” (Saltz).

The author said Fountain was not accepted by the “Society of Independent Artists,” but

then photographed by Alfred Stieglitz. He says that although Duchamp is considered an “anti-
artist” this is not true. “Duchamp may be the first modern artist to take God's prohibition against

"hewn" objects to heart. Fountain is not hewn or made in any traditional sense. In effect, it is an

unbegotten work, a kind of virgin birth, a cosmic coitus of imagination and intellect” (Saltz). The

author then takes opposition to critics of modern art. “Today's self-styled image-breakers, or

iconophobes, are as predictable and bellicose as ancient ones” (Saltz). He uses the examples of

such critics as Rauschenberg and Naves as misunderstandings or ignorance of modern art.

He worked for le Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, Paris, 1913, and then for the French

Institute of New York, 1915, as a librarian (Stefani). According to Susan Stefani Duchamp

immigrated to United States in 1915, but was not a citizen until 1955 when he was naturalized.

In New York City, 1916 He co-founded or was associated with several artist organizations such

as the Society of Independent Artists, a New York based dada group, with Man Ray and Francis

Picabia, a surrealist artists' group in Paris, 1919, and “Societe Anonyme (a museum of modern

art), with Katherine S. Dreier and Man Ray in New York City, 1920” (Stefani). Then he took a

180 degree turn in his career and became a professional chess player in 1923. He became a

member and delegate of the Committee of French Chess Federation in Paris from 1931 to 1937,

and a French team captain at the First International Chess by Correspondence Olympiad, 1935

(Stefani).

He married Lydie Sarazin-Levassor in1927 and then was divorced in 1928. He then

married Alexina Sattler in 1954 and had three children, Paul, Jacqueline, and Peter. Marcel

Duchamp died October 2, 1968, in Neuilly, France. During his education he studied fauvism,

cubism, and futurism. Throughout his life he created controversy and debate such as with his

cubist painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. He was an interesting man whose success
came from a urinal. Who made the urinal? Who cares. He’s the one making money off of it. The

greatest discoveries in history started on a toilet.

Stefani, Susan. "(Henri-Robert) Marcel Duchamp." Contemporary Authors Online.

Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.

West, Patrick. "Duchamp and his urinal: he was just taking the piss." New Statesman [1996] 13

Dec. 2004: 12+. Literature Resource Center. W Saltz, Jerry (2006-02-21).

"Idol Thoughts: The glory of Fountain, Marcel Duchamp's ground-breaking 'moneybags piss pot'". The

Village Voice. http://www.villagevoice.com/art/0609,200859,200859,13.html. eb. 5 Apr. 2011.