Marcel Duchamp: Art to break with art

Good conditions for artistically gifted logicists

Henri Robert Marcel Duchamp was born into a family in 1887, for whom the term “artist lawyer” is probably really good:

His father Justin-Isidore Eugène Duchamp (1848–1925) was a notary, the mother Marie Caroline Lucie Duchamp (1856-1925, as the mother of six children probably not working) was the daughter of Émile Frédéric Nicolle, who, after a professional life, reacished as a skilled painter and copper assistant.

Marcel was the third of six children and grew up near the French Canal coast in Blainville-Crevon near Rouen.

The children of the family were born at big intervals, Lucie Duchamp received the next with 19, the next with 20, Marcel with 31, Suzanne with 33, Yvonne with 39 and Magdelaine with 42.

Since the distances to the two older and the two younger siblings were around a decade, Marcel in fact grew up in the company of a sister, Suzanne's two years younger.

The educational climate in the Duchamp family was obviously impressed to inspire the descendants for art. The usual tendency to demand at least the proposal of training in an "honest academic profession" from the (male) descendants also prevailed in this family.

Marcel's eldest brother Emile Méry Frédéric Gaston Duchamp initially studied law and worked as a notary before setting up the Beaux-Arts in Paris at the École Nationale Supérieure in order to subsequently become famous Jacques Villon

Jacques Villon exhibited on Documenta 1 (1955), Documenta II (1959) and (Postum) on Documenta III (1964) and received numerous awards for his art, including the Grand Prize of the Venice Biennale 1956.

The second oldest, Pierre Maurice Raymond Duchamp, moved to his brother Jacques in Paris Montmartre and studied medicine on the Sorbonne from 1895. When he had to stop his studies because of a chronic illness, he turned to the sculpture and made a career as a "Raymond Duchamp-Villon" (a pseudonym, the perfect demarcation to the brothers Jacques and Marcel created both as artists and at the same time represented a link).

The important sculptor of Cubism was just beginning to experiment with the transfer of the cubist principles to architecture when he was moved in and became the victim of World War II in October 1918.

Sister Suzanne Duchamp was allowed to take the artistic career without detours as a girl, from 1905 (16 years of life) she visited the École des Beaux arts in Rouen, where she presented the first works in which she dealt with impressionism and cubism. At 21, she first married a local pharmacist, but the marriage was quickly divorced, Suzanne moved to Paris Montparnasse to expand her artist career near Brother Marcel.

The career (as an artist) was even more difficult to reach for a woman at the time than today. Even if many women have had other experiences, civilization is still a long way in this direction: there are masses of people who, regardless of their gender, believe in equality from all people and also - in conjunction with the endeavor to keep as many others away from power - also no more than one goal than one goal.

Small insertion for the many optimistic women who consider feminism as the subject of early history and equality as long: According to the applicable "data report on equal rights for women and men in the Federal Republic of Germany" , women - in 2015 - earn at least 20 percent less than men in Germany. No matter which data is used to analyze the earned income, in plain text everywhere, in every professional division.

This data report comes from the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth. In this name of the ministry, logically thinking people are also noticeable that in addition to the smallest network of people in a society (family), three groups of individuals are mentioned whose concerns are obviously to be treated politically in connection with this small association, seniors, women and adolescence. It's a shame that the German men have nothing to do with families for politics ...

The subject of early history is not equality, but partly very young contemporary history, as the introductory data of women's election law prove in 20 European countries: 1906 Finland, 1913 Norway, 1915 Denmark, 1915 Iceland, 1918 Latvia, 1918 Germany, 1918 Austria, 1918 Luxembourg, 1919 Netherlands, Sweden, 1921, 1921 1928 Great Britain, 1931 Spain, 1944 France, 1945 Hungary, 1945 Slovenia, 1945 Bulgaria, 1946 Italy, 1952 Greece, 1971 Switzerland, 1984 Liechtenstein.

Oh, on the current “world rankings of art” ( artfacts.net ), the 20 %drama is confirmed, only 100 women have access to the illustrious circle of the 500 most sought-after artists in the world, the rest of the front places take 400 men, 80 %.

Anyone who still claims that feminism is no longer up to date should either insert a round of thought or finally limit themselves to presenting themselves in high heels on YouTube.

For Suzanne Duchamp, the ranks of the mighty (including the usual admiring followers who would like to achieve power) were firmly closed at the time, like all female painters, she was difficult to find attention. And yet Suzanne Duchamp had her first big exhibition in the "Salon des Indépendant" in Paris, which is usually justified by (male) rapporteurs with increasing prominence of her brothers in the art world and not with an extraordinary quality of her oeuvre.

After a war -related break, Suzanne Duchamp created her first Dadaistic works of art, others and one stimulating their art with a Swiss artist followed. Her work changed from Dadaism to objective art to abstraction in high quality; It has exhibited in Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA that her works are now hanging in public collections in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in the Art Institute of Chicago and in the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art New York City).

The next two sisters Marcel Duchamps were born almost or for a good decade, Yvonne (* 1895) and Magdelaine (* 1898) are no different in the reporting than in the paintings that their brother Marcel made of them.

Early practices

After the primary school, Marcel Duchamp only went on a boarding school in Rouen from 1897 and then to the "Lycée Corneille" grammar school, where in 1904 he took the "Baccalauréat de Philosophy" (Abitur focus on philosophy).

1902, at the age of 15, began to paint Duchamp. His first pictures were impressionistic, this painting style was mainstream at the time. 1903 passed with portrait painting, sketches of relatives and friends of the family.

After graduating from high school, Duchamp went to the private art school Académie Julian in Paris for a few months, he was able to live there with his brother Jacques Villon.

During that time at the academy, he began with impressionist painting , it should take some time and some detours before these clashes were reflected in his works.

First of all, the military service of a carefree future stood in the way, and even at that time, rather peaceful contemporaries, ways to escape the violence drill or at least shorten the time: Duchamp voluntarily contacted a military in October 1905 and referred to doctors, lawyers, specialist workers and craftsmen one from 3 to 1 year.

In the course of his artistic exercises, Duchamp had completed and successfully completed an apprenticeship in an art printing company , which was now well passed as proof of the craft profession.

So he was able to return to Paris in October 1906, July 1908 he moved to Neuilly near his brother Jacques Villon in Puteaux, which he frequently visited in the Neuilly period until October 1913.

During this time Marcel Duchamp painted a lot, tried as an illustrator and also drew caricatures for several magazines.

First exhibition and Puteaux group

In 1909 Marcel Duchamp 2 X exhibited on the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, with two very impressionistic pictures at the spring exhibition and with three works in autumn, the gentle and well-behaved impressionistic work "On the cliffs" (1908), Ayay.co.uk/ "Saint Sébastien" , which was already slightly cubistically, (1909).

Because at Jacques Villon in Puteaux (Sundays, in the garden) Duchamp had a whole series of artists and writers - Albert Gleizes, Henri Le Fauconnier, Roger de la Fresnaye, Jean Metzinger, Guillaume Apollinaire, Francis Picabia, Juan Gris - and discussed with them about the "Latest cry in painting" Cubist works by Braques and Picassos.

Around 1911, Marcel Duchamp, like his brothers and the rest of the artists discussing, finally followed what “Modern Zeit” (and Picasso and Braque since about 1908) demanded from art-they turned to skin and hair to cubism , the so-called Puteaux group formed.

As is often the case with the artists' groups, there was soon trouble: the work “Akt, a staircase no. 2” (nu descendant and escalier no.2, www.philamuseum.org/ ), which was freshly made in 1912, was rejected immediately afterwards by the salon of the Indépendant, because it was too cubist or too cheeky or too good (“over their program ", this is called in artists, curator and other circles).

Marcel Duchamp has probably happened like a person traveling today (by network or actually) who unexpectedly gets into a meeting of a patriarchal allotment association (which should still exist today), he has the nose full of "elite circles" of any provenance: "It was a real turning point in my life," he quotes him, "I saw that" I would never be too interested in groups afterwards ”.

Old perfection, new perfection and artistic shock

Duchamp had met the German painter Max Bergmann . From his proposal, Duchamp traveled to Munich at the end of June 1912, where he spent about two months to study "old masters" in the old Pinakothek

The paintings Lucas Cranach were impressed by Duchamp, they had an impact on his last cubist painting "The Bride" ( www.abcgallery.com/ ), which was created in Munich summer 1912.

The first studies for "The newlyweds/ bride are undressed by their bachelors, even (or: large glass)" ( www.dada-companion.com/ , 1915 to 1923) should still let suggestions from Cranach feel.

, influences of the modern age were added, which were to end his previous art: Duchamp visited the third airfare in the Grand Palais in Paris, on which the latest airplanes were presented, with the latest technical innovations, which has been developed in the first flight with the first flight developed by Orville and Wilbur Wright in the year. Could be developed in 1903.

Duchamp must have come into contact with technology and their innovations for the first time, the effect was impossible, he said to Brâncuşi:

"Painting is in the end. Who can do something better than this propeller? You?"

Wasn't it, but the life of the painter Marcel Duchamp carried out a fundamental turn under the impression of the perfect industrial form, the results and huge effects of which are described "Marcel Duchamp: Ready to Make Art"