An abstract painting need in 50 years by no means look "abstract" any longer.
Marcel DuchampRead
In France, in Europe, the young artists of any generation always act as grandsons of some great man - Poussin, for example, or Victor Hugo. They can't help it. Even if they don't believe in that, it gets in their system. And so when they come to produce something of their own, the tradition is nearly indestructible.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Young artists are heavily influenced by the great artists before them, making tradition an unavoidable part of their work.
Marcel Duchamp highlights the idea that emerging artists are inherently shaped by the legacies of their predecessors. Despite their personal beliefs or desires to rebel against tradition, the influence of previous masters like Poussin and Victor Hugo is deeply ingrained in their creative process, thereby creating a continuum of artistic expression that is difficult to break away from.
Themes
ArtTraditionInfluenceCreativityLegacy
In practice
Example use cases
During a gallery talk, a curator might use this quote to discuss the importance of artistic lineage.
More from Marcel Duchamp
All quotes →All this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess.
Marcel DuchampRead
I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.
Marcel DuchampRead
I never finished the 'Large Glass' because, after working on it for eight years, I probably got interested in something else; also, I was tired. It may be that, subconsciously, I never intended to finish it because the word 'finish' implies an acceptance of traditional methods and all the paraphernalia that accompany them.
Marcel DuchampRead
It's a product of two poles - there's the pole of the one who makes the work, and the pole of the one who looks at it. I give the latter as much importance as the one who makes it.
Marcel DuchampRead
I became a librarian at the Sainte-Genevieve Library in Paris. I made this gesture to rid myself of a certain milieu, a certain attitude, to have a clean conscience, but also to make a living. I was twenty-five. I had been told that one must make a living, and I believed it.
Marcel DuchampRead
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