Marcel Duchamp: The Bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even

by John Golding

The Large Glass, as this extraordinary work is now familiarly known, occupied Duchamp intermittently for eight years, from 1915 to 1923. And he had been planning it for three years previously, ever since 1912, in Munich and Paris, though he made it in New York. It is one of the most complex, mysterious, and elusive art objects of all time. It has defied imitation. Yet it has changed the course of twentieth century art and influenced three generations of artists, most of whom have never seen the original. Dr. John Golding, in this penetrating study, discusses it first in its historic context - of Cubism and Futurism and later of Dada and Surrealism, which Duchamp did so much to create, though he always remained aloof from group manifestations; then he examines it in the light of contemporary literature, especially of Alfred Jarry an Raymond Roussel, and goes on to analyse its imagery, mainly sexual, though with other possible meanings and connections, suggesting interesting parallels with certain systems of alchemical procedure and thought. But, as John Golding points out, the work's true meaning is such that no complete explanation or solution of it can be given. For the Large Glass is an insoluble enigma. Duchamp, when asked about it, replied that "there was no solution because there was no problem". To which John Golding added that there is no problem because the riddles imbedded in it are designed in such a way that they can never be answered. But by leading us deeper and deeper into this extraordinary labyrinth, in which, of course, it is far more interesting and stimulating to be lost than to be shown the way out, he poses some of the unanswerable questions in a new light which illuminates this great work afresh.

116 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973