Alchemist of the Avant-Garde: The Case of Marcel Duchamp

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FIGURE 1 Marcel Duchamp, La Mariée mise à nu par ses Célibataires, même, or Le Grand Verre, or (The Large Glass) 1915–1923, mixed media (MD-133) (“MD-133,” etc., refers to numbers in Jean Clair’s 1977 Catalogue raisonné.) FIGURE 2 Marcel Duchamp, Portrait du Docteur Dumouchel 1910, oil on canvas (MD-38) FIGURE 3 Marcel Duchamp, Le Printemps or Jeune Homme et Jeune Fille dans le Printemps 1911, oil on canvas (MD-47) FIGURE 4 “Mercury in His Glass Vessel” with “The Alchemist and His Mystical Sister Praying for Success of the Great Work” 1677, from Anon., Mutus Liber FIGURE 5a “L’Enfant Enfermé dans l’Oeuf” From A. Poisson, Théories et Symboles des Alchimistes, 1891: Plate 14, top half: see also bottom half: fig. 5b “Conjonction, union ou mariage du Roi et de la Reine” FIGURE 5b “Conjonction, union ou mariage du Roi et de la Reine” From A. Poisson, Théories et Symboles des Alchimistes, 1891: Plate 14, bottom half: see also top half: fig. 5a: “L’Enfant Enfermé dans l’Oeuf” FIGURE 6 “Pantacles acrostiques alchimistes: V.I.T.R.I.O.L. & S.V.L.P.H.V.R.; F.I.X.V.M.; L.O.S.E.S.T.” From A. Poisson, Théories et Symboles des Alchimistes, 1891 FIGURE 7 “The Scala of Hermetic Knowledge” Frontispiece from Anon., Mutus Liber, 1677 FIGURE 8 Marcel Duchamp, La Mariée mise á nu par les Célibataires 1912, preparatory pencil sketch (MD-71) FIGURE 9 “Two Swordsmen Stripping Percipitated Mercury” From Musaeum Hermeticum, 1677 FIGURE 10 “The Nude, Crowned, Arbor-Type Mercury of the Philosophers” From H. Reusner, Pandora, 1582 FIGURE 11 Marcel Duchamp and Richard Hamilton, Schematic “Terminological” Plan of The Large Glass 1915–1923, after Jean Clair (MD-133) FIGURE 12 “Flamel’s Hieroglyphical Figures for the Cemetary of Innocents” Frontispiece from A. Poisson, Théories et Symboles des Alchimistes, 1891 FIGURE 13 Tu m’ . . . Marcel Duchamp 1918, oil on canvas, with bolt, bottle brush, safety pins (MD-14) FIGURE 14 “The Projection of the Stone” From M. Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618: Emblem 36 FIGURE 15 “The Squaring of the Circle” From M. Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618: Emblem 21 FIGURE 16 “This is the Dragon Eating its Own Tail” From M. Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618: Emblem 14 FIGURE 17 “The Sun and its Shadow Complete the Alchemical Work” From M. Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618: Emblem 45 FIGURE 18 “Make One Water Out of Two” From M. Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618: Emblem 40 FIGURE 19 “Conception in the Alchemical Bath” From M. Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618: Emblem 34 FIGURE 20 Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy ca. 1920, photograph (MD-131) FIGURE 21 “The Alchemical Hermaphrodite” From M. Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618: Emblem 33) FIGURE 22 “The Double-Thing and Its Parents, Hermes and Aphrodite” From M. Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618: Emblem 38) FIGURE 23 “Helix Penetrating Space and Time” From C. Bragdon, A Primer of Higher Space, 1913 FIGURE 24 “Steps of Theosophical N-Dimensionality” From A. Noircarme, Quatrième Dimension, 1912 FIGURE 25 Marcel Duchamp, Étant donnés: 1° la chute d’eau, 2° le gaz 1946–1966, mixed media environmental assemblage (MD-169): interior view FIGURE 26 Marcel Duchamp, Étant donnés: 1° la chute d’eau, 2° le gaz 1946–1966, mixed media environmental assemblage (MD-169): exterior view FIGURE 27 “A Fourth-Dimensional Water-Fall” From A. Noircarme, Quatrième Dimension, 1912 FIGURE 28 “A Thwarted Entrance to the Hermetic Garden” From M. Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618: Emblem 27 FIGURE 29 “Alchemical Orgasm and Death” From M. Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618: Emblem 50 FIGURE 30 “The Portal to the Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom” From H. Khunrath Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae, 1609 ...