Author notes

[207] All Checked Out for Fall

kawaiidaigakusei

on Oct. 19, 2007

The painting in the background is Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, my favorite piece of art. It has been the major focus in lecture this week and I have been a loyal Duchampian since my Junior year of high school. I really like Dada.

The reason I like this piece so much is because unlike Picasso and Braque, both who believed cubism was meant to break away from the human form entirely - with only geometric shapes and the words "Ma Jolie" inscribed through the bottom - Duchamp had a fascination with the female form that he could not leave behind. Duchamp's Nude Descending a staircase is the physical depiction of a nude as it descends the high pedestal of the reclining nude that was created by critics of fine art. It takes away the appreciation of art and beauty and turns the nude into sublimation.

Duchamp also takes the body and turns it into something that was somewhat mechanical. It shows the body as a machine.

My Art History professor this quarter describes Duchamp's style as, "spreading the nude across the canvas like butter on bread." He is so psychoanalytic.