An abstract painting need in 50 years by no means look "abstract" any longer.
Marcel DuchampRead
In the 'Nude Descending a Staircase,' I wanted to create a static image of movement: movement is an abstraction, a deduction articulated within the painting, without our knowing if a real person is or isn't descending an equally real staircase.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Duchamp's quote reflects on capturing the essence of movement in a static work of art.
In this quote, Marcel Duchamp expresses his desire to convey the concept of movement within a single, unchanging image, challenging the viewer's perception of reality. He emphasizes that the painting serves as an abstraction of motion, prompting viewers to engage with the idea that the depicted action of descending a staircase can exist in their minds despite the absence of actual movement.
Themes
MovementArtAbstractionStatic ImagePainting
In practice
Example use cases
During a gallery opening, one might quote Duchamp to discuss the nature of modern art and its relation to movement.
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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