Appendix B: A Note on the Construction of Duchamp as Alchemist

Henderson, Linda Dalrymple

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Appendix B: A Note on the Construction of Duchamp as Alchemist

Linda Dalrymple Henderson

Duchamp in Context: Science and Technology in the Large Glass and Related Works

~In his 1976 article “La Fortune critique de Marcel...

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Linda Dalrymple Henderson

PublisherPrinceton University Press

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Appendix B: A Note on the Construction of Duchamp as Alchemist

In his 1976 article “La Fortune critique de Marcel Duchamp” as well as in his entry on the Large Glass in the 1977 Paris exhibition L’Oeuvre de Marcel Duchamp, Jean Clair critiqued the arguments of authors to that date on the subject of Duchamp and alchemy, particularly those of Ulf Linde, Arturo Schwarz, and Maurizio Calvesi, as well as writers on Duchamp and the tarot or the Cabala, such as Nicolas Calas or Jack Burnham. Clair’s analysis emphasized the absence in these texts of any convincing ties to Duchamp’s contemporary context.1Jean Clair, “La Fortune critique de Marcel Duchamp: Petite Introduction à une herméneutique du Grand Verre,” Revue de l’Art, no. 34 (1976), 92–100; and Clair, OeuvreMD (Paris), vol. 2, pp. 107–13. The same criticism could generally be made of more recent studies, such as Rory T. Doepel’s work on Duchamp and the Cabala. See Doepel, “An Iconographical Analysis of Duchamp’s Bride Image in the Large Glass,” in Pillars of Smoke and Fire: The Holy Land in History and Thought, ed. Moshe Sharon (Johannesburg: Southern Book Publishers, 1996), pp. 187–222.

In addition to the individual books or articles by Linde, Schwarz, Calas, and Burnham cited in the bibliography, see the following essays included in exhibition catalogues: Linde, “L’Esotérique,” in OeuvreMD (Paris), vol. 3, 60–85; Schwarz, “The Alchemist Stripped Bare in the Bachelor, Even,” in Duchamp (Philadelphia), pp. 81–98; and Schwarz, “La Machine célibataire alchimique,” in Jungessellenmaschinen, ed. Szeemann, pp. 156–71. As noted in chapter 2 above, Linde’s essay for the 1977 Paris retrospective, “L’Esotérique,” as well as John Moffitt’s “Marcel Duchamp: Alchemist of the Avant-Garde” add a slightly more contextual element in taking note of the work of Albert Poisson in the 1890s.2See chap. 2, n. 94. However, these essays, too, tend to treat alchemy as the sole key to Duchamp’s life’s work and, like all previous discussions of the subject, miss completely the primary context for renewed interest in alchemy in the pre–World War I period—its association with radioactivity (see chap. 2).

Clair’s essay also pointed out Linde’s inadvertent error in using an illustration of the stripping of a female figure from Eugène Canseliet’s 1964 Alchimie: Etudes diverses de symbolisme hermétique et de pratique philosophale.3See Eugène Canseliet, Alchimie: Etudes diverses de symbolisme hermétique et de pratique philosophale (Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1964). Supposedly reproduced from a manuscript by Solidonius, Canseliet’s color plate transformed Solidonius’s image of the stripping of a hermaphroditic male figure into that of a demure young woman. Linde discussed his error in his “L’Esotérique” essay in the 1977 Paris catalogue, but his comparison had already been noted by Pontus Hulten in the 1968 exhibition catalogue The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age and was subsequently cited by Golding in his 1973 monograph on the Large Glass.4Linde, “L’Esotérique,” in OeuvreMD (Paris), vol. 3, pp. 60–62, where Linde illustrates both plates. See Museum of Modern Art, The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age (1968), pp. 79–80; and Golding, Marcel Duchamp, p. 85. See also Calas, “Large Glass,” p. 34. In fact, Canseliet’s 1964 compendium encouraged such a reading, since he labeled the illustration in question “Plate from the Philosopher Solidonius (the young virgin stripped)” and quoted in his text Basile Valentin’s allegorical description of a virgin’s stripping (see chapter 2 above at n. 102). For Canseliet, Solidonius’s image (described, however, by Linde and Clair as relating to the purification of the male Sun/gold) seems to have been preferable to Valentin’s own more aggressive and male-oriented illustration of the passage (see fig. 32 above).5See Canseliet, Alchimie, plate opposite p. 72 and pp. 63–64. Alchemy scholar M. E. Warlick has noted in conversation that gender depictions vary considerably in alchemical illustrations and that Canseliet may well have used another version of the Solidonius manuscript than that consulted by Linde in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal. In his 1986 book Marcel Duchamp (pp. 101–8), Linde returned to the Solidonius/Canseliet question, which remains a “riddle” for him. For the Clair and Linde discussions of the content of the Solidonius manuscript, see Clair, “Fortune critique,” p. 100, n. 12; and Linde, “L’Esotérique,” p. 62.

It should be emphasized that the notion of Duchamp as practicing alchemist grew out of the milieu of late Surrealism and was never rooted in any historical examination of alchemy in the early twentieth century. In his 1976 essay, Clair noted that the first references to Duchamp and alchemy occurred in the context of postwar Surrealism (e.g., Michel Sanouillet’s introduction to the 1958 Marchand du sel volume and Robert Lebel’s 1959 monograph), where metaphorical allusions to Duchamp’s art as alchemical were gradually replaced by claims for his intimate knowledge of alchemical practice.6Clair, “Fortune critique,” p. 93. Clearly, C. G. Jung’s interest in alchemy played a role in keeping the theme alive for authors such as Schwarz. Clair notes specifically the importance of Jung’s 1944 Psychology and Alchemy for later Surrealism (p. 42). Such assertions functioned as a means for Breton and others to link Duchamp to the Surrealists, whose esoteric interests were becoming more widely known through the writings of figures such as Michel Carrouges, author of “Surréalisme et occultisme,” published in Les Cahiers d’Hermès in 1947.7On alchemy’s importance for Breton and Surrealism, as voiced by Carrouges, see “Surréalisme et occultisme,” Les Cahiers d’Hermès, no. 2 (1947), 194–218; and Carrouges, André Breton and the Basic Concepts of Surrealism (1950), trans. Maura Prendergast (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1974), pp. 48–66. See also Anna Balakian, André Breton: Magus of Surrealism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971). Alluding to Carrouges’s 1954 Les Machines célibataires, Pontus Hulten recently referred to what he terms a “sterile attempt to interpret the Large Glass, based on its relation to the work of Kafka and alchemistic terminology and concepts,” as having “started in 1954 and continued for some time in circles close to Surrealism.”8Hulten, “Blind Lottery of Reputation,” in Duchamp (Venice), p. 19. Dieter Daniels, in a useful 1992 overview of the literature on Duchamp and alchemy, has suggested an even earlier inception of the Duchamp-alchemy discussions: an article by Gaston Puel, “Lettre à Marcel Duchamp,” in a 1949 issue of Néon.9See Dieter Daniels, Duchamp und die anderen: Der Modelfall einer künstlerischen Wirkungsgeschichte in der Moderne (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1992), p. 241; and Gaston Puel, “Lettre à Marcel Duchamp,” Néon, no. 5 (1949), 3. Daniels’s text (pp. 238–57 and related footnotes) is rich in bibliographical sources on this issue.

Duchamp’s later statements on the subject of alchemy were somewhat contradictory. In 1957, the same year he distanced himself from alchemy in his statement to Lebel, he used the term “transmutation” in his “Creative Act” speech to describe the eye of the spectator who transforms “inert matter into a work of art.”10Duchamp, “The Creative Act,” speech given before the American Federation of Arts, Apr. 1957 (in SS, pp. 139–40); for Duchamp’s statement to Lebel, see chap. 2 at n. 109. In an August 15, 1959, letter to Serge Stauffer, Duchamp responded to Stauffer’s question about his statement to Lebel by pointing out that ‘“to practice alchemy’ doesn’t translate into words and all the alchemical treatises I have never read would have been completely inadequate.”11See Stauffer, ed., Duchamp: Die Schriften, p. 258. As in his answer to Lebel, Duchamp asserted in a July 11, 1967 letter to Jacques van Lennep that he had not shared the Surrealists’ interest in occultism as manifested in the 1947 Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in Paris.12See Van Lennep, Alchimie, p. 420. It would seem to have been Breton’s enthusiasm for alchemy and the resultant late Surrealist attempt to portray Duchamp as a fellow practitioner that evoked such specific denials from the artist, who usually did not bother to contradict any of the myriad interpretations made of his works. More typical of Duchamp’s detached stance was his exchange with the artist Robert Smithson, who encountered Duchamp at a show of the latter’s works at the Cordier-Ekstrom Gallery in 1963. When Smithson commented, “I see you are into alchemy,” Duchamp replied, “Yes.”13See Moira Roth, “Robert Smithson on Duchamp: An Interview,” Artforum 12 (Oct. 1973), 47.

On the subject of Surrealism, it is interesting that Canseliet, whose variation on Solidonius’s image Linde reproduced, was also linked to Surrealist circles in Paris. In his translation of Basile Valentin’s Les Douze Clefs, Canseliet cites Carrouges’s Les Machines célibataires as well as Les Portes Dauphines, which Carrouges had sent him, noting the correspondence between Carrouges’s text and Valentin’s discussion of the stripping of a virgin.14See Canseliet’s comments in Valentin, Douze Clefs, pp. 40, 116. For Valentin’s discussion of stripping, see chap. 2 at n. 102. Carrouges, as noted above, had written on Breton and alchemy, and Canseliet had first published his introduction to Valentin’s text in January 1955 in the Surrealist periodical Medium: Communication Surréaliste; that same issue included a letter from Duchamp to Breton concerning Carrouges’s Les Machines célibataires.15For Canseliet’s text, see Medium: Communication Surréaliste, n.s., no. 4 (Jan. 1955), 41–42; for Duchamp’s letter to Breton, see chap. 12, n. 131. Canseliet and Carrouges were among the respondents to the “Enquête” on “l’art magique” published by Breton in his volume Formes de l’art: L’Art magique, the same volume in which Lebel first published Duchamp’s denial of alchemy.16See Formes de l’art: L’Art magique, ed. Breton and Legrand, pp. 78, 116–17; on the Lebel text, see chap. 2 at n. 109. These connections of Canseliet, advocate of alchemy, to the Surrealist milieu now suggest that he may have had a previously unsuspected impetus to illustrate Valentin’s passage with a more clearly feminine image in his 1964 volume: he was well aware of the relevance of the stripping theme for contemporary art and literature.

1 Jean Clair, “La Fortune critique de Marcel Duchamp: Petite Introduction à une herméneutique du Grand Verre,” Revue de l’Art, no. 34 (1976), 92–100; and Clair, OeuvreMD (Paris), vol. 2, pp. 107–13. The same criticism could generally be made of more recent studies, such as Rory T. Doepel’s work on Duchamp and the Cabala. See Doepel, “An Iconographical Analysis of Duchamp’s Bride Image in the Large Glass,” in Pillars of Smoke and Fire: The Holy Land in History and Thought, ed. Moshe Sharon (Johannesburg: Southern Book Publishers, 1996), pp. 187–222.

In addition to the individual books or articles by Linde, Schwarz, Calas, and Burnham cited in the bibliography, see the following essays included in exhibition catalogues: Linde, “L’Esotérique,” in OeuvreMD (Paris), vol. 3, 60–85; Schwarz, “The Alchemist Stripped Bare in the Bachelor, Even,” in Duchamp (Philadelphia), pp. 81–98; and Schwarz, “La Machine célibataire alchimique,” in Jungessellenmaschinen, ed. Szeemann, pp. 156–71. »

2 See chap. 2, n. 94. »

3 See Eugène Canseliet, Alchimie: Etudes diverses de symbolisme hermétique et de pratique philosophale (Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1964). »

4 Linde, “L’Esotérique,” in OeuvreMD (Paris), vol. 3, pp. 60–62, where Linde illustrates both plates. See Museum of Modern Art, The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age (1968), pp. 79–80; and Golding, Marcel Duchamp, p. 85. See also Calas, “Large Glass,” p. 34. »

5 See Canseliet, Alchimie, plate opposite p. 72 and pp. 63–64. Alchemy scholar M. E. Warlick has noted in conversation that gender depictions vary considerably in alchemical illustrations and that Canseliet may well have used another version of the Solidonius manuscript than that consulted by Linde in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal. In his 1986 book Marcel Duchamp (pp. 101–8), Linde returned to the Solidonius/Canseliet question, which remains a “riddle” for him. For the Clair and Linde discussions of the content of the Solidonius manuscript, see Clair, “Fortune critique,” p. 100, n. 12; and Linde, “L’Esotérique,” p. 62. »

6 Clair, “Fortune critique,” p. 93. Clearly, C. G. Jung’s interest in alchemy played a role in keeping the theme alive for authors such as Schwarz. Clair notes specifically the importance of Jung’s 1944 Psychology and Alchemy for later Surrealism (p. 42). »

7 On alchemy’s importance for Breton and Surrealism, as voiced by Carrouges, see “Surréalisme et occultisme,” Les Cahiers d’Hermès, no. 2 (1947), 194–218; and Carrouges, André Breton and the Basic Concepts of Surrealism (1950), trans. Maura Prendergast (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1974), pp. 48–66. See also Anna Balakian, André Breton: Magus of Surrealism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971). »

8 Hulten, “Blind Lottery of Reputation,” in Duchamp (Venice), p. 19. »

9 See Dieter Daniels, Duchamp und die anderen: Der Modelfall einer künstlerischen Wirkungsgeschichte in der Moderne (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1992), p. 241; and Gaston Puel, “Lettre à Marcel Duchamp,” Néon, no. 5 (1949), 3. Daniels’s text (pp. 238–57 and related footnotes) is rich in bibliographical sources on this issue. »

10 Duchamp, “The Creative Act,” speech given before the American Federation of Arts, Apr. 1957 (in SS, pp. 139–40); for Duchamp’s statement to Lebel, see chap. 2 at n. 109. »

11 See Stauffer, ed., Duchamp: Die Schriften, p. 258. »

12 See Van Lennep, Alchimie, p. 420. »

13 See Moira Roth, “Robert Smithson on Duchamp: An Interview,” Artforum 12 (Oct. 1973), 47. »

14 See Canseliet’s comments in Valentin, Douze Clefs, pp. 40, 116. For Valentin’s discussion of stripping, see chap. 2 at n. 102. »

15 For Canseliet’s text, see Medium: Communication Surréaliste, n.s., no. 4 (Jan. 1955), 41–42; for Duchamp’s letter to Breton, see chap. 12, n. 131. »

16 See Formes de l’art: L’Art magique, ed. Breton and Legrand, pp. 78, 116–17; on the Lebel text, see chap. 2 at n. 109. »

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