Newsletter

21st Century Art

'Gallery Without Walls'

Evolve your state of mind.

21^st Century Art is committed to imparting a forum of diversity for creativity and expression. We aspire to empower artists by affiliating each with an audience. Additionally we hope to cultivate the desire for thought provoking original art in the general public by making it easily accessible.

Fig. 1 Marcel Duchamp (American, France 1887-1968), Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2. (1912). Oil on canvas, 58 x 35 inches. 50-134-59: Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA: The Louise and Walter Arenserg Collection. Image Source: http://did.cit.jmu.edu/default.aspx?direct=image&id=15:22566

“Historically significant art [and artists] depend[s] on the creation of new aesthetic modes.”[1] Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 (Fig. 1) is an embodiment of such ingenuity. Marcel Duchamp, quintessential archetype of an Early Modern and conceptual artist, was heralded by those eager to explore uncharted frontiers in the world of art. A critical populace who were remiss in their assessment of his distinct expressiveness deprecated him. In a failed attempt at tongue-n-cheek humor, William Eickhorst parades an opinion that undervalues Duchamp and his impact on the trajectory of art in modernity. A Formalist approach to Nude explicates its catalytic imperative. Robert Jansen articulates the intentional abandonment by Duchamp, of the conventional stylistic tenets in the early twentieth century.[2] Seymour Howard takes a Psychoanalytic approach to Duchamp’s relentless obsession with the nude figure, which gives insight into his artistic motivation. Amidst a swirl of controversy, Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 was pivotal for the shift in the perception of modern art, where “the ‘new’ vanquished the ‘old’ in American culture with a single stunning revolutionary blow.”[3] Using these methods to investigate Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, Marcel Duchamp’s deliberate injection of the intellectual into his artwork becomes evident and analysis reveals that he has altered arts conscious growth. In the words of Cliff McMahon, Duchamp, “challenge[s] modern artists to discover radical novelty and at the same time to return to reason.”[4] Marcel Duchamp’s contribution to the world of art is a ‘Janus aesthetic’.[5] Unlike Umberto Boccioni’s Futurist position, Marcel Duchamp’s artistic genius did not begin as a blank slate.[6] If phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny, then being born into an artistic family was his first advantage. The French born American was the grandson of a painter-printmaker and younger brother to a painter, Jacques Villon, and sculptor, Raymond Duchamp-Villon. First influenced by the Impressionist paintings of Claude Monet, then later Paul Cezanne, Duchamp began painting at the age of fifteen.[7] After joining his brothers in Paris, Duchamp took painting classes at Academie Julian from 1904 through 1905. It was during this period that he first made a living through art: selling cartoons to local publications. Marcel Duchamp utilized the familial connections forged through years of social networking with artists and literary agents of his generation. The Groupe de Puteaux of Paris is one such example, lending him opportunity to exchange ideas with members such as Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Jacques Villon, Guillaume Apollinaire, Albert Leon Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, and Francis Picabia, whom Duchamp considered the most advance group of the period.[8] Life, like chess, is a series of strategic moves. Marcel Duchamp appears to have used wisely the resources of his associations to checkmate his opponent: the accepted institution of high art. There is no question that his artistic expectation was influenced by such interdependence. It was not until 1915, two years after the renowned Armory show in New York that Duchamp left Paris and arrived in America at the urging of Walter Arensberg, his most ardent supporter. A Formal approach to the notorious painting, Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 frequently categorizes it as Cubist, however it is a-typically dynamic. The observable locomotion of the figure down the staircase is more demonstrative of a Futuristic approach to action. Nude’s formal anatomy is reduced to simplistic geometric schemes, a “formal decomposition…linear elements following each other like parallels and distorting the object.”[9] In addition, it is consistently cubist in its monochromatic arrangement. In this case, Duchamp chose the traditional palette of earth tones, and neutrals, using white as a stark indication of highlight. Duchamp’s Nude is predominantly angular in arrangement; layering, not modeling gives the figure an aspect of 3-dimensionality. Missing are the discernable individualistic features of the face and characteristic structures of the hands and feet. Severing the composition is the staircase, which can scantly be seen in the background. The round finial at the right third of the canvas is the only indication of the balustrade the spectator unconsciously includes. Beginning at the top right of the canvas, the stairs sink to the middle section of the left side and finally, cut back across to the right bottom corner, allowing the descending figure the navigational space to exit the frame unimpeded. An echelon of consecutive figures stacked one top of each other and the limited use of arcs allude to the vigorous ambulation of the figure down the stairs. The visual analysis and reduction of the figure in Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 is at once planar in quality, yet deceivingly recessive. However, the viscosity of the figure is out of step with the traditionally static Cubist forms. Nude figures do not descend staircases, they recline.[10] Additionally, Nude fails to meet the subject matter of the technologically based futuristic themes. Here the object in space meets the object in motion.[11] “In the composition, Duchamp depicted motion by successive superimposed images, similar to stroboscopic motion photography.”[12] He was influenced by the work of photographers such as Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne Jules-Marey who were experimenting with stop-motion photography (Fig. 3) and chronophotography (Fig. 4).[13] Marey explained elementary parallelism in a book that influenced Duchamp to make the Nude as a “system of dots delineating [the] different movements [of people who fence, or horses galloping]”.[14] Marcel Duchamp first experimented with the idea of elementary parallelism in a sketch for Again to this Star (Nude Ascending a Staircase) in 1911. (Fig. 5)[15] Additionally Linda Dalrymple Henderson introduced the possibility of collaboration between Duchamp and Paul Richer for the Nude.[16] From its initiation though, we see a progression of the “mechanization of man” in opposition with “perceptible beauty” as illustrated from Again to this Star (Nude Ascending a Staircase), to Nude Descending a Staircase No. 1 (Fig. 6) and more completely in Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2.[17] Nude is itself abstracted movement articulated in a static image, thus the dynamic forces actually occur within the spectator. [18] The irony of the painting that is Duchamp’s legacy is its suspended animation. It is “delayed, so that the Nude never finishes descending the stairs.”[19] In an attempt to innovate a classical theme, explicitly the nude in a landscape, Marcel Duchamp’s resultant composition correlated two philosophically divergent movements, Cubism and Futurism. In his article, “The Avant-Garde and the Trade in Art,” Robert Jansen reasons that Duchamp was not attempting a style reflective of his prewar contemporaries; he was “attempt[ing] to open up rather than to delimit the boundaries of art.”[20] Like Castling in his favorite game, chess, Duchamp swapped the accepted standard of what an artistic style should be for what it can become unencumbered by convention, ultimately giving rise to the modern era of artistic freedom.[21] With progressive vision, Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending Staircase No. 2 catapults perception of modern art into a dynamic arena of innovative technique. The inclusion of Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 in the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York had impact beyond measure; it became the focal point for controversy and celebration during the exhibit. The Association of American Painters and Sculptors organized the Armory Show, as it is better known, including 1500 contemporary works, one third of which came from Europe, including Duchamp’s work and that of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Paul Gauguin.[22] The hype of Duchamp’s Nude at this one show altered the way American artists worked and the way the American elite collected art.[23] The Armory show allowed Americans to see first hand “the scale and scope of what was happening in twentieth century art.”[24] Nude is stylistically unorthodox on many levels, however not without its title to underscore the scandalous nature. It had been subject to censorship and withdrawn from an exhibit in Paris at the Salon des Independants in 1912. Even among artists, including his two brothers, Duchamp’s treatment of the subject and the title was so untraditional that it was considered too provocative and ‘not keeping with serious Cubist’ style which was analytical in bias. [25] The Puteaux Cubists were not amused with Nude and the Italian Futurists saw it as appropriated Futuristic style.[26] Duchamp’s voluntary withdraw of Nude from the Salon in 1912 would signify a new phase in his artistic career. His determinism would not be arrested here, however altered. For a time following the rejection of the Nude at the Salon, Duchamp occupied a minor post at the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, thus initiating his epithet of the anti-artist.[27] The broad response to Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 at the Armory show forged Duchamp’s career as an Avant-Garde artist which preceded his arrival and citizenship in the United States. Duchamp’s cogent approach to the fabrication of art was a profound shift of perception indicative of cultural and intellectual evolutionary changes occurring in the early twentieth century. Admittedly, Duchamp intended to revolutionize the preexisting notions of what art should be, and successful in his immediate objective, he irrevocably altered the course of art. In doing so, he unconsciously ‘reconciled art and the people’, making art accessible to thinking commoners, not just making art for the elite. [28] No longer, would art be dependent strictly on a ‘retinal’ or visual vocabulary, Marcel Duchamp introduced intellectualism into modern art, thus changing the very pedestal on which art stood.[29] This initiative liberated both artists and patrons of the arts.[30] The ironic playfulness and cerebral qualities of Duchamp correlate to the psychoanalytic work that Sigmund Freud revealed in the early twentieth century. [31] The “nude [figure] became a vehicle for expressing [unconscious] psychological states and [repressed] emotional attitudes.”[32] Ever obsessed with the nude figure Duchamp clung to it as a neoclassic subject at a time when most artists spurned its use in art, and the Nude here “becomes, among other things, an hour-glass of the modern age, illustrating Duchamp’s thoroughly pessimistic attitude toward temporality.”[33] Seymour Howard Damisch and Krauss calls Duchamp’s untraditional use of the nude “cultivated [and] esoteric” and in advance of what his brothers had been doing at the time. Its “rigid rejection” by the Puteaux Cubists is a result of their chauvinism and desire to “suppress” Duchamp’s ‘ostensibly serendipitous’ style. [34] Nude is demonstrative of our organic nature within a synthetic built environment and as Albert Cook argues, “Duchamp…exploits the connection between the automatic or machine like unconscious mechanisms of sexuality and the amorous transport, a visible discrepancy between the soft, curvilinear, rounded body and the hard-edged, rectilinear skeletal machine.[35] Duchamp, always questioning the accepted concept of art and through his friendships with contemporaries such as Picabia and Appolinaire, challenged artistic institutions in radical and ironic ways, like the resultant fusion of Cubism and Futurism in Nude Descending A Staircase No. 2.[36] In spite of his achievements in art, Marcel Duchamp also shouldered disparagement concerning his Avant-Garde work, including that from President Theodore Roosevelt when after examination of Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 at the 1913 Armory exhibit, discharged Duchamp as “crazy.”[37] Some Duchamp contemporaries, chiefly the Futurists deemed him “impotent.” [38] While an individual work of art of is incapable of satisfying all stylistic predilections, the notion that a work of art is ridiculous and trivial illustrates a one-dimensional mode of judgment on the part of the observer. Within our modern culture an erroneous myth about ‘good art’ depicting a representational ideal is still pervasive, even among artists as was illustrated by the reaction from fellow artists to Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2. In his article, “Research Explains Modern Art,” William Eickhorst attempts to account for Duchamp’s quantum leap in stylistic change within the realm of Nude by erroneously correlating his style to that of individuals with a psychological condition called “visual stuttering.”[39] There is an evident disregard for the historical influences that preceded Duchamp’s Nude, and a premeditated propagation of the ‘good art is representational’ falsehood. With an intriguing and enigmatic oeuvre, Duchamp’s intentional disassociation with any particular movement in art has resulted in a legacy that is one not of style, but rather attitude. [40] Duchamp’s finger in the eye of convention was a life-long source of amusement. It is evident in the small body of work he produced that Duchamp’s treatment of concepts is analogous to the manner in which a traditional philosophic mind would approach abstract ideas. Not driven by stylistic tendencies, Duchamp expounded upon literary and particularized influences in a radical and unrestrained manner. Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 is vital as a manifestation in the evolutionary role of the contemporary artist as a catalyst. The continued intellectual continuity of his work “has had an extraordinary resonance-and references to his life and work have become virtually a modus operandi for negotiating the phenomenology of art in our times.” [41] Duchamp’s Nude is a point of departure for our understanding of modern art aesthetics. [1] Robert Jensen. “The Avant-Garde and the Trade in Art.” Art Journal, Vol. 47, No. 4, Revising Cubism. (Winter, 1988), 360-367. [2] Robert Jansen elucidates Duchamp’s ‘indifference’ to the stylistic, theoretical, and ‘collective’ tendencies of the Avant-Garde artist in Paris in the early twentieth century. Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 is one such manifestation. Jansen, “Avant-Garde.” [3] J.M. Mancini, “One Term is as Fatuous as Another: Responses to the Armory Show Reconsidered.” American Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 4 (1999), 833-870. [4] Cliff G. McMahon, “The Janus Aesthetic of Duchamp.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 41-51. [5] Janus, is in Roman religion, the god of beginnings. McMahon, “Janus.” [6] Italian artist and sculptor, Umberto Boccioni was the principle theorist for the Futurist manifesto. “Boccioni looks to a tabula rasa to establish his ‘completely reoriented’ sensibility,” in laying out the particulars of the Futurist position. Jansen. “Avant-Garde.” [7] Duchamp’s brothers, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Jacques Villon, introduced him to chess at the age of thirteen, then painting two years later. Both of Duchamp’s brothers were members of the Groupe de Puteaux. Jacques Villon’s paintings such as The Dining Table (Fig. 2) reflect the stylistic tendencies of the Paris cubists. Oxford University Press 2007. ‘Duchamp, Marcel, Early artistic experiments, to January 1912,’ Grove Art Online [1 October 2007] http://www.grovearet.com/shared/views/article.html?section=art.2021611.1.1.1. [8] The Groupe de Puteaux was a loosely organized group of artists in Paris in the early twentieth century who were interested in Cubism, but in a way that differed from Picasso and Braque who were credited with the birth of the Cubist style. Joel Rudinow. “Duchamp’s Mischief.” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 38, No. 4, (Summer, 1981), 747-760. [9] Duchamp described the technique of formal decomposition as a procedure for creating Sad Young Man on a Train. He explained, “The object is completely stretched out, as if elastic.” This he said is the same procedure he used to compose Nude Descending a Staircase. Pierre Cabanne. Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp. Translated from the French by Ron Padgett. (New York: Viking Press, 1971), 29. [10] Arturo Schwarz. The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp (New York, H.N. Abrams, 1969), 16. [11] Calvin Tomkins, The Bride and the Bachelors; The Heretical Courtship in Modern Art. (New York: Viking Press, 1965), 21. [12] http://www.reference.com/search?q=nude%20descending%20a%20staircase#all [13 October 2007]. [13] Duchamp clarifies that the Nude did not use chronophotography as the fundamental idea, but was influenced by the work produced through the process. Cabanne, Dialogues, 34. [14] Duchamp was amused by the “pretentious” formula of elementary parallelism. He claimed to have seen an illustration in one of Etienne Jules-Marey’s books that “indicated” with a system of dots the delineation of physical movement. Cabanne, Dialogues, 34. [15] Again to this Star was a sketch originally done in 1911 of a nude ascending stairs. In typical Duchamp impudence, he dated it 1912 and dedicated it 1913. Cabanne, Dialogues, 46. [16] Linda Dalrymple Henderson. “X Rays and the Quest for the Invisible Reality in the Art of Kupka, Duchamp, and the Cubists,” Art Journal, Vol. 47, No. 4, Revising Cubism (Winter, 1988), pp. 323-340. [17] Duchamp’s “mechanization of man as opposed to beauty” was admittedly unconscious, at first, with the Nude. Cabanne, Dialogues, 34-35. [18] Nude was an attempt on Duchamp’s part to create “a static image of movement.” The spectator actualizes that movement and thus “incorporates it into the painting.” Hubert Damisch and Rosalind Krauss. “The Duchamp Defense.” October, Vol. 10, (Autumn, 1979), 5-28. [19] Damisch and Krauss, “Defense,” 5-28. [20] Jansen, “Avant-Garde.” [21] In the game of chess, Castling is a special defensive maneuver. This special move is the only time when two pieces, the king and the rook, may move during the same play: a swap. This move was invented in the 1500’s to help speed up the game and balance the offensive/defensive strategy. The rules for castling are rigid and can restore power to a rook that was impeded by other pieces. Marcel Duchamp was a tournament chess player during his life, preferring the game to art. The swap made by castling a king and rook in chess is a powerful metaphor for Duchamp’s consistent approach to life and art: swapping convention for nonconformity, in an almost heretical way, to speed up the intellectualization of art. [22] Peg Griffith. “Visually Unacceptable.” Art Education, Vol. 36, No. 5 (September, 1983), 38-39. [23]Duchamp’s own opinion of the Armory show is that it “woke people up to the idea of art in a country where there had been little interest before.” Pierre Cabanne. Dialogues, 49. [24] Griffith, “Visually Unacceptable.” [25] The Salon des Independants artists were dominated by traditional cubists who objected to Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, particularly to the title, which Duchamp inscribed on the front of the canvas. Oxford University Press 2007. ‘Duchamp, Marcel, Early artistic experiments, to January 1912,’ Grove Art Online [1 October 2007] http://www.grovearet.com/shared/views/article.html?section=art.2021611.1.1.1. [26] Tomkins, The Bride, 25. [27] Robert Lebel. Marcel Duchamp. With Chapters by Marcel Duchamp, Andre Breton & H.P. Roche. Translation by George Heard Hamilton. (New York: Paragraphic Books, 1967), 27. [28] Tomkins, The Bride, 25. [29] Damisch and Krauss discuss Duchamp’s artistic imperative: That art is and must be intellectual and not simply visual. Damisch and Krauss, “Defense,” 5-28. [30] Lebel, Duchamp, 20. [31] David Rodgers: “Nude, 4: The modern period, after 1800’, Grove Art Online [1 October 2007], http://groveart.com/shared/views/article.html?section=art.062999.4 [32]Rodgers, Grove Art Online [1 October 2007], http://groveart.com/shared/views/article.html?section=art.062999.4 [33] Lebel, Duchamp, 9. [34] Seymour Howard. “Hidden Naos: Duchamp Labyrinths.” Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 15, No. 29 (1994), pp. 153-180. [35] Albert Cook. “The ‘Meta-Irony’ of Marcel Duchamp.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Spring, 1986), 263-270. [36] Pasadena Art Museum. Marcel Duchamp: Pasadena Art Museum, a retrospective exhibition, October 8-November 3, 1963. Pasadena, 1963? [37] Griffith posits, “Many observers still associate good art with reality depicted representationally.” Additionally Griffith noted that Roosevelt’s comment on Duchamp was widely quoted, and that despite being well educated, Roosevelt failed to "properly assess" the Nude resulting in the misunderstanding of the purpose of art. Griffith, “Visually Unacceptable.” [38] Jensen, “Avant-Garde.” [39] Visual Stuttering is a phenomenon whereby afflicted people with this rare psychological condition will experience an interruption in vision caused by the fibrillation of the carrier nerve during the transmission of visual data to the brain. William S. Eickhorst. “Research Explains Modern Art.” Art Education, Vol. 38, No. 1. (January, 1985), pp. 48-49. [40] Jill Lloyd. “Review: Duchamp and His Legacy. Cologne.” The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 130, No. 1023 (June, 1988), 485-486. [41] Lloyd, “Review,” 485-486.

Fig. 2 JacquesVillon (French 1865-1963), The Dining Table, (1912) Oil on Canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Villon_dining_table.jpg

Fig. 3 Eadweard Muybridge (English 1830-1904), (late 19th century) Photograph. Woman walking downstairs. Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Muybridge-1.jpg

Fig. 4 Etienne Jules Marey (French 1830-1904). Man Fencing. (Late 19th ) Chronophotography. Image Source: http://www.ex.ac.uk/bdc/young_bdc/movingpics/movingpics6.htm

Fig. 5 Marcel Duchamp (American, France 1887-1968), Again to this Star (1911). Image Source: http://www.toutfait.com/issues/volume2/issue_5/articles/powers/powers6.html

Fig. 6 Marcel Duchamp (American, France 1887-1968), Nude Descending a Staircase No. 1. (1911). Oil on canvas, 37 3/4 x 23 3/4 inches. 1950-134-58: Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA: The Louise and Walter Arenserg Collection. Image Source: http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/51448.html

Cabanne, Pierre. Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp. Translated from the French by Ron Padgett. New York: Viking Press, 1971. Cook, Albert. “The ‘Meta-Irony’ of Marcel Duchamp.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Spring, 1986), pp. 263-270. Damisch, Herbert; Krauss, Rosalind. “The Duchamp Defense.” October, Vol. 10, (Autumn, 1979), pp. 5-28. Eickhorst, William S. “Research Explains Modern Art.” Art Education, Vol. 38, No. 1. (January, 1985), pp. 48-49. Griffith, Peg. “Visually Unacceptable.” Art Education, Vol. 36, No. 5 (September, 1983), pp. 38-39. Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. “X Rays and the Quest for Invisible Reality in the Art of Kupka, Duchamp, and the Cubists.” Art Journal, Vol. 47, No. 4, Revising Cubism (Winter, 1988), pp. 323-340. Humble, P.N. “Marcel Duchamp: Chess Aesthete and Anartist Unreconciled.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 32, No. 2. (Summer, 1998), pp.41-55. Howard, Seymour. “Hidden Naos: Duchamp Labyrinths” Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 15, No. 29 (1994), pp. 153-180. Jensen, Robert. “The Avant-Garde and the Trade in Art.” Art Journal, Vol. 47, No. 4, Revising Cubism. (Winter, 1988), pp. 360-367. Lebel, Robert. Marcel Duchamp. With Chapters by Marcel Duchamp, Andre Breton & H.P. Roche. Translation by George Heard Hamilton. New York: Paragraphic Books, 1967. Lloyd, Jill. “Review: Duchamp and His Legacy. Cologne.” The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 130, No. 1023 (June, 1988), pp. 485-486. Mancini, J.M. “One Term is as Fatuous as Another: Responses to the Armory Show Reconsidered.” American Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 4 (1999). pp. 833-870. McMahon, Cliff G. “The Janus Aesthetic of Duchamp.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), pp. 41-51. Oxford University Press. 2007. ‘Duchamp, Marcel, Early artistic experiments, to January 1912’, Grove Art Online (Accessed 01 October 2007), <http://www.groveart.com/shared/views/article.html?section=art.2021611.1.1.1 > Pasadena Art Museum. Marcel Duchamp: Pasadena Art Museum, a retrospective exhibition, October 8-November 3, 1963. Pasadena, 1963? Rodgers, David: ‘Nude, 4: The modern period, after 1800’, Grove Art Online (Accessed 01 October 2007), <http://www.groveart.com/shared/views/article.html?section=art.062999.4> Rudinow, Joel. “Duchamp’s Mischief.” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 7, No. 4. (Summer, 1981), pp.747-760. Swartz, Arturo. The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1969. Tomkins, Calvin. The Bride and the Bachelors; The Heretical Courtship in Modern Art. New York: Viking Press, 1965.


Fig. 1 Avian Creature, Aztek Empire, Meso American, Stone, 1 ¾”. Harrisonburg, VA, Madison Art Collection (76.1.0192)	Fig. 2 Snake, Aztek Empire, Meso American, Stone, 3 ¾”. Harrisonburg, VA, Madison Art Collection (76.1.0188)

The physical laws of nature remain constant. However, individual perception about them within different cultures can and does change. This perceptual variation impacts the articles and objects produced by a culture. A prime example would be the Aivilik Eskimos, who do not “regard space as static.”1

^{The objects manufactured are intended to be experienced in a dynamic and tactile way. While we revere them as art, they may not. We define objects such as art, and use an accepted model of representation to do so. Often, we apply that model of representation to another culture’s objects. This blanket application approach to interpreting cultural objects is cause for western assumptive thinking.2 Our approach to interpreting aspects of ethnicity other than our own is very linear. Our failure in interpretation of ethnic articles is in our linear method. Modular analysis however can yield a more successful result; utilizing our sensory and intellectual faculties first for experience, then interpretation. When looking at ‘art’ objects of another culture what is required is a departure from our conceptual definitions of what art is; its purpose; and how it is to be perceived. We must also disengage from the attitude that such items have an aesthetic value to be experienced collectively.}

What we define as art may well have been created for another purpose. For example: Aztek Money (Fig. 1-2) from the Monte Alban mounds Valley of Mexico would have been traded for goods and services. These items were functional, not necessarily ornamental. While we appreciate the skill of the craftsman, it is important be mindful that the intention of these small sculptures was not as a spectacle. They were meant to be handed from one person to another. Experientially this transaction is entirely different and much more social as opposed to the individual reaction to sculpture as adornment or meditative piece. Approaching this type of sculpture with western ideals may well lead to an incorrect interpretation of the objects themselves. However, when we open our minds to the possibility of new ways of perception; tactile, emotive, motivational (as in the use of money) as well as visual we have an opportunity to experience objects as they were intended at the time of their creation. We then gain a much clearer sense of the underlying value of an object as ‘art’.

1 To the Aivilik space is dynamic, therefore not measurable. This is easier to comprehend if we consider the natural environment of the Eskimo which is very different from ours below the artic circle. Salztstein, Peter A. “Misperceiving African and Eskimo Art.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 99-107.

² Salztstein, Peter A. “Misperceiving African and Eskimo Art.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 99-107.

Philosophy Camouflaged as Art

Marcel Duchamp is a quintessential archetype of an Early Modern and conceptual artist heralded by those eager to explore uncharted frontiers in the world of art and deprecated by a populace who were remiss in their assessment of his distinct expressiveness. Duchamp’s cogent approach to the fabrication of art was a profound shift of perception indicative of cultural and intellectual evolutionary changes occurring in the early 20th century. Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 is pivotal as a manifestation in the evolutionary role of the contemporary artist as philosopher. The inclusion of Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 in the 1913 Armory exhibit in New York had impact beyond measure. Nude is stylistically unorthodox on many levels. Subject to censorship and withdrawn from an exhibit in Paris in 1912 this painting was the focal point for controversy during the Armory exhibit. While typically categorized as a Cubist painting, Nude Descending a Staircase is a-typically dynamic. The observable locomotion of the figure down the staircase is more demonstrative of a Futuristic approach to the subject matter. Nude’s natural form however, is reduced to simplistic geometric shapes and is consistently cubist in its monochromatic arrangement. The visual analysis and reduction of the figure in Nude Descending a Staircase is at once planar in quality, yet vigorous. In an attempt to innovate a classical theme, explicitly the nude in a landscape, Marcel Duchamp’s resultant composition correlated two philosophically divergent movements; Cubism and Futurism.It is evident in the small body of work he produced that Duchamp’s treatment of concepts is analogous to the manner in which a traditional philosophic mind would approach abstract ideas. Not driven by stylistic tendencies, Duchamp expounded upon literary and particularized influences in a radical and unrestrained manner. Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 is pivotal as a manifestation in the evolutionary role of the contemporary artist as philosopher. The continued intellectual continuity of his work “has had an extraordinary resonance-and references to his life and work have become virtually a modus operandi for negotiating the phenomenology of art in our times.” [1] Duchamp’s Nude is a point of departure for our understanding of modern art aesthetics.

[1] Lloyd, Jill. “Review: Duchamp and His Legacy. Cologne.” The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 130, No. 1023 (Jun., 1988), pp. 485-486.

The Courtship of Young Italian Men

The stately lad of Bronzino’s Portrait of a Young Man is unconcerned with our presence. The three quarter view of his pleasing countenance is coupled with a detached demeanor that is almost palpable. His rapt gaze asserts his intellectual competence and social posting with unmistakable high brow flavor. The prospect to peruse the likeness of this distinguished young man is all we are afforded. Portrait of a Young Man is characteristic of 16th century mannerism as is demonstrated in the difficult posturing of the figure, the elongated fingers, architectural elements and the harsh lighting.There is an intriguing dynamic movement in this composition yielding a unifying work of art. The eye is irrevocably drawn to the intent look of the figure. However, the hands command equivalent attention. The overall current in this piece is an effortless circuit counterclockwise from the face to the hand over the book in all its tension, to the hand on the hip with its purposefulness and back again to the nearly pompous facade. Intrigue belies the eyes and the nose is rendered flawless; perhaps a boosterish condition of the patron himself. Our boy’s mouth is an invitation to speak, yet communication is achieved through the artist’s use of formal characteristics.When we examine the features of the painting Bronzino’s individuality comes through as an over all vision.[1] This patrician’s ear has a linear quality about it. Of particular interest are the hands in Bronzino’s figure. The hand that grasps the book is in an awkward state of suspension. While the other hand seems to rest on the young mans hip with such heaviness that it appears as an extension of the torso. The detail in the hand is significant and the fingers are especially elongated. The supple folds of the jacket, the elaborate collar and the detail in the hat offer rich texture indicative of material wealth, restating this boy’s station in life.The structure of the figure is treated with utmost concern. As seen most conspicuously on the face, the light is unsympathetic. The use of color here implies intention on the part of the artist to distinguish his subject from his environment. The velvet cast of raw umber in the coat and hat allows their forms to disengage from the background. The use of zinc white and layered glazing lends to an unspoiled quality about the figure’s flesh and variance to the clothing. The simplicity of the somewhat flattened architecture is stark beside the more modeled decorative elements of the table legs on which the subject props his book. The attribution of this painting has been made to Bronzino, and it is analogous to another of his other works; Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time (The Exposure of Luxury). Mannerist qualities abound; uncomfortable, unnatural poses of the figures, elongated features such as the nose and fingers, a crowded picture frame and acrimonious lighting and color usage. The ears of the figures here bear a similar linear quality to that of the Portrait of a Young Man. Additionally, the hands and faces in The Exposure of Luxury also drive the overall movement of the piece. Deviating from the tone of the subject matter, Bronzino depicts more suspect behavior in The Exposure of Luxury. Differences aside, the unique treatment of specific formal features demark the individuality of Angelo Bronzino.

[1] “[Bernard] Berenson’s claim to fame as a connoisseur lay in his extension of [Giovanni] Morelli’s idea of a set of traits into a more elaborate set of criteria. In his essay ‘The Rudiments of Connoisseurship’ he presented a schema by which aspects of a painting are ordered into three groups, ranked according to their usefulness for the attribution of authorship. Into the first and most useful group, Berenson placed ears, hands and folds, as well as landscapes. In the second, he located hair, eyes, nose and mouth, and in the third, skull, chin, the structure and movement of the human figure, architecture, colour and light and shade.” Hatt, Michael, and Klonk, Charlotte. Eds. Art History: A Critical Introduction to its Methods. Manchester and New York. Manchester UP. 2006. p. 57.

Hegel on the Winged Victory

All things in nature possess a spirit unique unto themselves; an individual essence of being; the Absolute Idea. Just as no two snowflakes are like; no two material forms can possess the similitude of the Absolute Idea. Greek Classicism is indicative of the self-awareness required during its antithetical stage of artistic evolution; allowing the spirit to be mediated effectively in appropriate form and context on its path to Absolute Consciousness. Where an individual piece of art fits within the cyclical stages of Universal Beauty may determine the categorical assignment of the piece.The Hellenistic Period was an inclination toward the sequential acme including works such as that of the Nike of Samothrace; the artist was enthusiastic and yet cognizant to arbitrate the inner quality of the Idea to form masterfully.The Nike of Samothrace as an archetype is the reconciled embodiment of the Absolute Idea: Triumph. The semi-translucent nature of the marble reveals the fusion of the Idea’s inner quality and the form. With a chisel as a diving rod, the Nike’s creator as a conduit carved out an ideal beauty in a human figure, the truest form in nature. Nature, however, is not simply material. It is a synthesis of the sensuous form and its’ inner quality. Art therefore does not merely imitate nature; it is a vehicle for the universal Idea. The Nike is an exemplary in its capacity to possess this spirit. In spite of her missing arms and face, Victory’s divinity speaks through the effortless movement in her poised step and the graceful shift of her weight on her hips; the perceived quality of the wind against her bodice that cannot be felt, but assumed atop the bow of a war vessel; the beguiling features of her figure beneath her dress; the subtleties of folds in the drapery; as well as the gradation in light, shadow and form in her outstretched wings all provide a synchronicity between the spirit and the medium with which the artist chose for the form culminating in the triumph of this sculpture. Louise Gardner stated this point most eloquently:“The gauze like stretch of the material across the stomach and the waves of drapery around the striding thighs and legs amount not only to an exercise in virtuosity of stone craft but a successful effort to make stone do what poetry and painting do-render at the same time the visual nuances of the moment and the ongoing essence of action.” (Gardner, Louise. Art through the Ages Eighth Edition. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. 170.)Aestheticians are rent with the arduous task of discerning true art from technically apt artistic pieces. Fundamentally, the differences between artists and technicians can be experienced in exemplary pieces such as the Nike and the artists’ ability to embody the spirit and synthesize it into sensuous form. Comparatively, reproductions for example, may merit recognition for the artist’s technical ability, but not however the ability to clearly express the Idea of the original work. A technician is deficient in ability to imbue life to a piece of art the way the artist of the Nike has with the spirit of the Idea. Winged Victory, awe-inspiring goddess, is emancipated from the milieu of her epoch.

Home	Exhibitions	Newsletter
Donna German Gallery	Fred German Gallery	Contact Us