Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), the French-American literary artist, heavily influenced conceptual art, where the concept behind the picture is more important than its appearance. In other words, emphasis shifting away from the the visible work—to glean the meaning of a picture (or its subtext)—is one of the primary characteristics of Duchamp’s works. As Duchamp clearly intended to move away from retinal paintings (what is visible) to invisible interpretations of it, the role of the spectator becomes of much importance. In his own words, “the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world…and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.”
Duchamp felt too dominated by his contemporary Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet’s, whose works of Realism emphasized on the illusory physical aspects of painting. Duchamp, of course, always wanted to abandon the retinal painting. He was interested in ideas and the intellectual side of visual art. He wanted his works to be known as literary and intellectual or rational paintings, based on interpretations.
If we trace the background of Duchamp’s works, in “Yvonne and Magdeleine Torn in Tatters” (1911), he experimented with ambiguity and the shifting of meaning. He made the background figures disappear and then reappear. But the most important influence of Duchamp is his invention of the ‘Readymades’—common objects posed as works of art. As a result, he raised the question of and ambiguity around whether to call Readymades art in the first place.
In “Nude Descending a Staircase” (1912), Duchamp followed the Cubist format to distribute a central figure in facets. You could compare the work with Pablo Picasso’s “Portrait of Ambroise Vollard”. Duchamp’s figure is so distorted that it is sometimes hard to see it as a nude study. There are several perspectives present in this picture. On the other hand, the figure with so many planes may appear like metallic armour plates. Here the influence of Futurism can be seen from a particular perspective, though Duchamp denied that later. Again, Duchamp incorporated the influence of chronophotography—much like cinema, where figures are distorted and arranged sequentially. The dislocations of body parts heavily reflect the influence of Cubism. The spectator will perceive the figures’ movements in different directions, if looked at from different angles. Again, in a whole, Duchamp projects a sense of mystery in this work.
Duchamp, again, greatly influenced the Dada movement. This break-free movement, like Duchamp’s works’ characteristics, was against the physical aspects of art and was a quest for the literary and metaphysical attitude of it. In “L.H.O.O.Q.” (1919), Duchamp used a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” (a Readymade) and added a moustache and goatee to the character that reversed the gender. The work brought in ambiguity—what if Mona Lisa was male in a parallel world? And there was the influence on Dadaism, the art movement that rejected tradition, denied respect for elders, and opposed the dogmatic current of the world. The nihilism in Dadaists rose from Nietzche’s interpretation of the death of God. Naturally, Dadaists infused their work with a sense of vandalism in art. Besides meddling with gender, “L.H.O.O.Q. (also the initials of a French informal saying “She has got a hot arse”) asks if it should at all be called a work of art as, apart from the facial hair, it is just a reproduction of the original Mona Lisa. Here, Duchamp is asking for a cerebral reaction to the whole Institution of Art. He suggests that thinking from a spectator’s point of view is more important than projecting an illusion from the artist’s side.
Like Vorticists (closely related to the Futurists), Dadaists too were against ‘tradition’; they reflected a sense of anarchy in everything. Here Duchamp turned against Modernism too, an art movement mostly about aesthetics and little about intellect. Duchamp’s Readymades are a shock to this convention.
“Bicycle Wheel” (1913), the third version of which is in Museum of Modern Art currently, is another Readymade. The emphasis of it is not in the making but in the projection and interpretations. A bicycle wheel fixed on a kitchen stool is a useless thing as both of the objects are removed from their proper places.
The same thing is applied in the case of “Fountain”, where Duchamp posed a urinal, that too laid horizontally, as a sculpture and is signed as “R. Mutt”. These are no artworks at all and rise an enigma and curiosity around them and force the onlookers to ask questions about what qualifies as art. “Fountain” (1917) is kind of a shock to the spectators and an insult to the past masters when it finds a valuable place in a purist temple of art. Thus, it raises the question of what art is all about and why we should revere it at all.
In the case of “Etant Donnes” (1946–1966) or “Given”, where Duchamp invites the spectator to look through two holes in a wooden door and in a pornographic manner to see a nude female figure inside, the pigskin coated armature figure is in there, surrounded by a photograph of a waterfall painted by Duchamp with some collage element. So with the combination of collage, photography, sculpture, and the unique presentation in a voyeuristic manner, this collective work produces an enigmatic aura like most of Duchamp’s works.
Duchamp’s legacy in today’s Modern art retains its shock and sensation. His art reflects the sense of nihilism, permanent scepticism, and a disbelief in everything, the seed of which can be found in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Duchamp’s legacy of conceptual art lives on in Ian Hamilton Finlay’s “Et in Archadia Ego”, in David Mach’s “Parthenon”, and the concept of installation as a genre, like Mona Hatoum’s installations, and, subsequently, in Symbolism, Fantasy art, and surrealism. The fruits of his message shows up in later artists like Dali and Mach, among others.
Ambiguity, shock, and mystery are Duchamp’s tools, and they’re well represented in works like “Bicycle Wheel”, “Fountain”, and other readymades. By enabling the onlooker to think and interpret what is before them in their own ways, he made the great shift of importance from picture to the spectator.