Marcel Duchamp is considered as one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century by the modern art world.

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Marcel Duchamp is considered

as one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century by the modern art

world.  Duchamp, who participated in artistic movements from Fauvism to Surrealism,

was an innovator and a revolutionary within the art world.  Duchamp, being

a founding force in the Dada movement, was also a main influencing factor of

the development of the 20th Century avant-garde art. All in all Duchamp has

become a legend within the art world.

        Marcel Duchamp was born on July 28,1887

in Blainville France. Being the brother of two prominent artists, Raymond Duchamp-Villon

and Jacques Villon, it seemed only natural that the young Marcel Duchamp would

participate in the arts. Also, his childhood home was abundantly decorated

with seascapes, landscapes, and etchings produced by his grandfather Emile-Frederic

Nicolle.  As he himself put it, “When you see so many paintings you’ve got

to paint.”   In 1907, at age 17, Duchamp resolved to become an artist.

        Marcel

Duchamp had the great fortune of entering the world of art at a most exciting

time when the birth of Fauvism and Cubism was in the not so distant future.

Although Marcel incorporated these styles he was never  satisfied with any

single style. He felt that styles were learned techniques which put creativity,

exploration, and imagination in the background of the art scene. Duchamp’s

view of the  lack of creativity and originality may have prompted many of his

later creations which, at the time of their production, seemed absurd.

        Throughout

Marcel Duchamp’s career he dabbled in a wide variety of styles ranging from

Fauvism to Cubism, all the way to the art of Ready-mades. Although he openly

expressed that painting bored him, he did it quite well. Early in his career

he, like most young artists, painted friends and family, things he was familiar

with. Duchamp’s only formal training came at the Academie Julian in Paris from

where he dropped out after only eighteen months to pursue his own interests.

 This seems to be a defining characteristic of Marcel Duchamp’s career, he

did things that suited him, not what others felt was the correct thing to do.

        Marcel

Duchamp’s artistic output began with  portraits of people close to him such

as family members and close friends.  At this time Duchamp was experimenting

with Fauvism, the art of the “wild beasts”.  In this from of art one could

use arbitrary colors. This is the reason one might see portraits made by Duchamp

from around 1910 in which  people are represented with greenish skin or blue

hair. Throughout Duchamp’s career it was not as important to be totally accurate

as it was to get a creative point or theme across.

        One negative view of Fauvism

was that it was not intellectually stimulating for artists. This is a main

reason why many artists, one of them being Duchamp, turned their artistic focus

the avant-garde. Cubism, with complex planes and geometrically sound shapes

gave artists the intellectual stimulation that they craved.  Colors of the

early cubist period were muted which put the spotlight more on the visual effects

of the art. The possibilities of manipulation of the shapes to Duchamp’s own

interests benefited him immensely.

        Duchamp prospered as he turned away from

the conservative Fauvism moving towards the avant-garde and experimentation

within the cubist mode of art. He discovered ways to manipulate his paintings

to be able to show the intricacies of his favorite game chess.  Duchamp believed

that art should be left up to the mind rather than the eyes, just as in chess.

His first production of the Cubist origin is titled The Sonata. It is said

that many of the characteristics of this painting reveal influence from a group

of Cubist artists, which included his two brothers,  called the Puteaux Cubists.

This group of artists rebelled against casual cubism ,which was practiced by

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the likes of Picasso and Braque, in favor of geometric precision.    

        Duchamp

was a pioneer in Cubism by the way he showed movement in his paintings. His

first attempt at showing movement through the geometric shapes is titled Sad

Young Man On A Train. In this work Duchamp uses four or five overlapping profiles

moving from left to right across the canvas. The colors were dark symbolizing

Duchamp’s mood at the time. He was preparing to leave Paris in favor of, what

he believed to be a less commercial area, Munich. In another attempt at movement

in ...

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