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Born on the 28th July 1887 in Blainville, near Rouen in France, He was the brother of Raymond Duchamp-Villon, the sculptor, and of Suzanne Duchamp, the poetess and also half- brother of Jacques Villon. He began to paint in 1908 and at the age of 22 Duchamp was a member of “The golden circle” a painter’s circle, which included Metzinger, Leger, and Picabia, He was painting in the style of Cubism and futurism, which is shown his work “nude descending a staircase,” painted in 1912. (19)

In 1913 Duchamp exhibited this work in the New York Armoury show, in which it was the much more ridiculed work at the show. In 1912 when he painted “Nude descending a staircase” Duchamp said, “that painting is washed up”. (20) In abandoning painting, he said, “I want something where the eye counts for nothing.” At this point the Duchampian revolution consists of the notion of the “ready-made”. (20)

This term describes common objects with or without modification that were relocated in museums and galleries. The term “objet trouve” first was first recorded in a letter to his sister Susanne Duchamp in 1913. (21)

The earliest readymade of Duchamp’s was the Bicycle wheel of 1913. This consisted of a bicycle wheel fixed onto a wooden stool. These readymades ojects were mass produced objects with common uses such as snow shovels and bottle racks which Duchamp would then sign. He would give the objects names that were totally irrelevant for their practical use.

In 1915, Duchamp went to the USA for the first time. (22) The USA now better developed than Europe in technology, communications and now had the tallest building in the world. Soon, Duchamp settled and became the centre of a group of painters round the “Stieglitz” gallery in which the group adopted the “anti-art” attitude as with Zurich Dadaism. (23)

In 1917, Duchamp sent his mass- produced urinal, (readymade) called “fountain” to New York, (where the first show for the society of independent artist was held. Simply called “independent show”, (24) signed with the name “R.Mutt”, it was nothing but a common urinal. The work that was signed with a false name and exhibited on its back became centre to an unrealistic approach and was pulled out of the exhibition. The theory behind the readymade explained in an article, anonymous but believed to be by Duchamp himself in defence to his alter-ego, Mr Mutt, In the May 1917 issue of the avent- garde magazine “ The Blind Man”, run by Duchamp and his two friends, printed this text.

“Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He chose it. He took an ordinary article of life, and placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view-created a new thought for that object. “There are three important points here: First that the choice of the object is itself creative act. Secondly, that by cancelling the “useful” function of an object it becomes art. Thirdly, that the presentation and addition of the object have given it “a new thought”, a new meaning” (25).

Duchamp’s readymade also asserted the principle that, art is defined by the artist. The idea of art is made in t本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。