Editing Marcel Duchamp (section)

==Early work==
Duchamp's early art works align with [[Post-Impressionism|Post-Impressionist]] styles. He experimented with classical techniques and subjects. When he was later asked about what had influenced him at the time, Duchamp cited the work of [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolist]] painter [[Odilon Redon]], whose approach to art was not outwardly anti-academic, but rather quietly individual.

[[File:Marcel Duchamp, 1911-12, Nude (Study), Sad Young Man on a Train (Nu -esquisse-, jeune homme triste dans un train), Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice.jpg|thumb|Marcel Duchamp, ''Nude (Study), Sad Young Man on a Train (Nu [esquisse], jeune homme triste dans un train)'', 1911–12, oil on cardboard mounted on Masonite, 100 x 73&nbsp;cm (39 3/8 × 28 3/4 in), [[Peggy Guggenheim Collection]], Venice. This painting was identified as a self-portrait by the artist. Duchamp's primary concern in this painting is the depiction of two movements; that of the train in which there is a young man smoking, and that of the lurching figure itself.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/1179 |title=Marcel Duchamp, 1911–12, ''Nude (Study), Sad Young Man on a Train'', Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice |publisher=Guggenheim.org |access-date=11 May 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140512230957/http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/1179 |archive-date=12 May 2014  }}</ref>]]
Duchamp studied art at the [[Académie Julian]]<ref>[http://www.theartstory.org/artist-duchamp-marcel.htm theartstory.org] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130627194840/http://www.theartstory.org/artist-duchamp-marcel.htm |date=27 June 2013 }}</ref><ref>(fr)[https://web.archive.org/web/20180222225657/https://books.google.com/books?id=Rl7vBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT1152&dq=Acad%C3%A9mie+Julian&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj50Iu_qsHPAhUFQBQKHUIzB7w4UBDoAQgnMAI#v=onepage&q=Acad%C3%A9mie%20Julian&f=false Victoria Charles, Joseph Manca, Megan McShane, ''1000 Chefs-d'œuvre de la peinture'']</ref> from 1904 to 1905, but preferred playing billiards to attending classes. The Académie Julian was one of several "independent" academies that sprang up in reaction to the [[Ecole des Beaux-Arts]]. During this time, Duchamp drew and sold cartoons that reflected his ribald humour. Many of his drawings use verbal puns (sometimes spanning multiple languages), [[visual pun]]s, or both. Such play with words and symbols engaged his imagination for the rest of his life.

In 1905, Duchamp began his compulsory military service with the 39th Infantry Regiment,<ref name="François Lespinasse">François Lespinasse, ''Robert Antoine Pinchon: 1886–1943'', 1990, repr. Rouen: Association les amis de l'École de Rouen, 2007, {{ISBN|9782906130036}} {{in lang|fr}}</ref> working for a printer in Rouen. There he learned [[typography]] and printing processes—skills he would use in his later work.

Owing to his eldest brother [[Jacques Villon|Jacques']] membership in the prestigious [[Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture]] Duchamp's work was exhibited in the 1908 [[Salon d'Automne]], and the following year in the [[Salon des Indépendants]]. [[Fauvism|Fauves]] and [[Paul Cézanne]]'s [[proto-Cubism]] influenced his paintings, although the critic [[Guillaume Apollinaire]]—who was eventually to become a friend—criticized what he called "Duchamp's very ugly nudes" ("les nus très vilains de Duchamp").<ref>[https://books.google.fr/books?isbn=2847420436 Pierre Lartigue, ''Rose Sélavy et caetera''], University of Michigan, Le Passage, 2004, p. 65, {{isbn|2847420436}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.fr/books?isbn=2246630819 Judith Housez, ''Marcel Duchamp: biographie''], Grasset, 2006, p. 93, {{ISBN|2246630819}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=tKlIAQAAIAAJ Bernard Marcadé, ''Marcel Duchamp: la vie à crédit : biographie''], Flammarion, 2007, p. 28, {{ISBN|2080682261}}</ref> Duchamp also became a lifelong friend of the exuberant artist [[Francis Picabia]] after meeting him at the 1911 Salon d'Automne, and Picabia proceeded to introduce him to a lifestyle of fast cars and "high" living.

In 1911, at Jacques' home in [[Puteaux]], the brothers hosted a regular discussion group with [[Cubism|Cubist]] artists including Picabia, [[Robert Delaunay]], [[Fernand Léger]], [[Roger de La Fresnaye]], [[Albert Gleizes]], [[Jean Metzinger]], [[Juan Gris]], and [[Alexander Archipenko]]. Poets and writers also participated. The group came to be known as the [[Puteaux Group]], or the [[Section d'Or]]. Uninterested in the Cubists' seriousness, or in their focus on visual matters, Duchamp did not join in discussions of Cubist theory and gained a reputation of being shy. However, that same year he painted in a Cubist style and added an impression of motion by using repetitive imagery -- in the process creating his own offshoot of Cubism that more closely resembled [[Futurism]].

During this period, Duchamp's fascination with transition, change, movement, and distance became manifest, and as many artists of the time, he was intrigued with the concept of depicting the [[fourth dimension in art]].<ref>Ian Chilvers & John Glaves-Smith, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art''. Oxford University Press, p. 204</ref> His painting ''Sad Young Man on a Train'' embodies this concern:

<blockquote>First, there's the idea of the movement of the train, and then that of the sad young man who is in a corridor and who is moving about; thus there are two parallel movements corresponding to each other. Then, there is the distortion of the young man—I had called this ''elementary parallelism''. It was a formal decomposition; that is, linear elements following each other like parallels and distorting the object. The object is completely stretched out, as if elastic. The lines follow each other in parallels, while changing subtly to form the movement, or the form of the young man in question. I also used this procedure in the ''Nude Descending a Staircase''.<ref>Cabanne, 1971 p.29.</ref></blockquote>

In his 1911 ''Portrait of Chess Players'' (''Portrait de joueurs d'échecs'') there is the Cubist overlapping frames and multiple perspectives of his two brothers playing chess, but to that Duchamp added elements conveying the unseen mental activity of the players.

Works from this time also included his first "machine" painting, ''Coffee Mill (Moulin à café)'' (1911), which he gave to his brother Raymond Duchamp-Villon. The later more figurative machine painting of 1914, ''Chocolate Grinder'' (''Broyeuse de chocolat''), prefigures the mechanism incorporated into the ''Large Glass'' on which he began work in New York the following year.<ref>Calvin Tomkins, ''The Bride and the Bachelors'', New York 1962, pp.31–2</ref>
[[File:Duchamp - Nude Descending a Staircase.jpg|thumb|right|Marcel Duchamp. ''[[Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2]]'' (1912). Oil on canvas. 57 7/8" x 35 1/8". [[Philadelphia Museum of Art]].]]

===''Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2''===
{{main|Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2}}

Duchamp's first work to provoke significant controversy was ''[[Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2]]'' ''(Nu descendant un escalier n° 2)'' (1912). The painting depicts the mechanistic motion of a nude, with superimposed facets, similar to motion pictures. It shows elements of the fragmentation and synthesis of the Cubists, as well as the movement and dynamism of the [[futurism (art)|Futurists]].

He first submitted the piece to appear at the Cubist [[Salon des Indépendants]], but [[Albert Gleizes]] (according to Duchamp in an interview with Pierre Cabanne, p. 31)<ref name="Peter Brooke">[http://www.peterbrooke.org.uk/a&r/Du%20Cubisme/Part%20two/duchamp Peter Brooke, The "rejection" of Nude Descending a Staircase] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140109091932/http://www.peterbrooke.org.uk/a%26r/Du%20Cubisme/Part%20two/duchamp |date=9 January 2014 }}</ref> asked Duchamp's brothers to have him voluntarily withdraw the painting, or to paint over the title that he had painted on the work and rename it something else. Duchamp's brothers did approach him with Gleizes' request, but Duchamp quietly refused. However, there was no jury at the Salon des Indépendants and Gleizes was in no position to reject the painting.<ref name="Peter Brooke" /> The controversy, according to art historian Peter Brooke, was not whether the work should be hung or not, but whether it should be hung with the Cubist group.<ref name="Peter Brooke" />

Of the incident Duchamp later recalled, "I said nothing to my brothers. But I went immediately to the show and took my painting home in a taxi. It was really a turning point in my life, I can assure you. I saw that I would not be very much interested in groups after that."<ref>{{harvnb|Tomkins|1996|p=83}}</ref> Yet Duchamp did appear in the illustrations to ''[[Du "Cubisme"]]'', he participated in the ''[[La Maison Cubiste]] (Cubist House)'', organized by the designer [[André Mare]] for the [[Salon d'Automne]] of 1912 (a few months after the Indépendants); he signed the [[Section d'Or]] invitation and participated in the Section d'Or exhibition during the fall of 1912. The impression is, Brooke writes, "it was precisely because he wished to remain part of the group that he withdrew the painting; and that, far from being ill treated by the group, he was given a rather privileged position, probably through the patronage of Picabia".<ref name="Peter Brooke" />

The painting was exhibited for the first time at [[Galeries Dalmau]], ''Exposició d'Art Cubista'', Barcelona, 1912, the first exhibition of Cubism in Spain.<ref name="Robinson et al">[https://books.google.com/books?id=6EvIx6zOuqgC&q=dalmau&pg=PA319 William H. Robinson, Jordi Falgàs, Carmen Belen Lord, ''Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí''], Cleveland Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Yale University Press, 2006, {{ISBN|0300121067}}</ref> Duchamp later submitted the painting to the 1913 "[[Armory Show]]" in New York City. In addition to displaying works of American artists, this show was the first major exhibition of modern trends coming out of Paris, encompassing experimental styles of the European [[avant-garde]], including Fauvism, Cubism, and [[Futurism]]. American show-goers, accustomed to realistic art, were scandalized, and the ''Nude'' was at the center of much of the controversy.