Comparing Duchamp and Modigliani - Case Study Example

Art: Comparing Duchamp and Modigliani Modern artists working since the early part of the 1900s have dedicated themselves to depicting the range of human emotions within the colors and lines of their work. The modernists, such as Picasso, focused on the emotions themselves with little or no reference to the symbols or issues of the times. They felt that the only way to portray the realism of the subject was to break the rules of art in order to explore images of pure emotion. Lyotard (1984) describes this process as an attempt “to make visible that there is something which can be conceived and which can neither be seen nor made visible” (78). This “something that can be conceived but not seen nor made visible” is often referred to as the sublime, a quality of transcendent greatness “with which nothing else can be compared and which is beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation” (Wikipedia, 2006). The presence of this sublime element, then, inspires the imagination in a specific direction based on which elements remain visible or understandable. Its significance is in the way in which it brings attention to the uncertainty of meaning inherent in the work, such that no resolution makes itself apparent. To understand how emotions or the sublime can be communicated through visual art, the work of modern artists Marcel Duchamp, with his “Nude Descending a Staircase #2”, and Amedeo Modigliani, with “Head of a Woman”, will be compared in terms of their materials, subject matter, content, composition, color and impacts of context or the time period in which they were produced. Duchamp; Nude Descending a Staircase #2 Modigliani; Head of a Woman In terms of materials, both works of art are oil paintings placed on stretched canvas. Thus, they each represent a two-dimensional surface with little room for actual depth or movement. Although numerous means had been devised to create the illusion of depth in flat surfaces such as this, neither artist makes much use of these devices, instead allowing their backgrounds to remain relatively dark and formless. There are hints, however, at some form of space created in each. In Duchamp’s painting, for example, there is a hint of the stairway mentioned in the title in the bottom left corner offset by a somewhat smoother, flatter surface in the upper right corner. Because of the juxtaposition with the figure in the center, this latter surface seems to fall back, providing a shallow space within the painting. Modigliani also provides some sense of depth in his painting with unidentifiable dark-colored spaces to the right of the woman’s head that remain suggestive of a dark room behind her, particularly emphasized by the way in which the woman is framed. In each painting, the prime subject is revealed through their titles as being that of a woman although their forms of expression are quite different. Duchamp claims his figure is that of a nude woman walking down a set of stairs. Working in the cubist tradition, however, the woman’s body becomes little more than a set of geometric shapes placed one on top of the other to overlap and create an impression of a human figure. In addition, Duchamp was attempting to capture the element of motion within the freezed frame of his painting by presenting the various stages and positions the woman goes through as she makes her way downward. By contrast, Modigliani presents only the face of the woman in his painting, looking straight on toward the viewer. Her expression and her empty eyes, despite meeting those of the viewer, invite little occasion to interact. This inability to interact is mirrored in Duchamp’s work in which the figure seems to be unaware of an audience of any kind. The content of each painting, as has been suggested, is widely different. While both artists present us with an almost undecipherable setting, they each depict their women in a unique way that leaves them at once approachable and also completely untouchable. The woman in Duchamp’s painting is made up of a series of geometric shapes overlapping and interfering with each other in such a way as to merely suggest the outline of a human body in various stages of motion. The final presentation could be seen as little more than a large, gold-colored somewhat offset and irregular diamond pattern splashed across the center of a brown canvas with intricate patterns of lines and curves to interrupt the solid. Modigliani’s painting, while also not focused on presenting life-like representation, nevertheless manages to portray what is unmistakably a woman’s face. What is visible of her is nothing more than her face, a long, thin neck and equally thin, seemingly too narrow shoulders. The composition of both paintings has been very carefully balanced to give the impression of imbalance without the reality of it. For example, in Duchamp’s painting, the figure is descending a stairway, which necessitates a downward diagonal motion. In addition, the figure closest to us is the one that has reached the bottom step. Because our eye is naturally drawn to this figure through the use of color and light, it would have been easy for the painting to become imbalanced with the eye seeming to drop off of the bottom right corner. It doesn’t do so because of the way in which this bottom figure leans backward on the stairway, overlapping some of the earlier movements depicted, helping to distinguish it as being in the forefront of the picture plane and re-directing the eye back into the picture. Keeping the eye from roaming out of the picture on the upper left is the ‘afterimage’ of the figure as it begins its descent, naturally bent forward and angling down. Through the series of angles and curves that comprise the shape of the woman, the eye is led back and forth, up and down the stairs, again and again, while it remains fixated on the image of the picture by the uninviting darknesses of the background and stairway. Modigliani presents his painting in much the same way compositionally speaking. By placing the woman’s head to the extreme left side of the painting, he leaves a wide open dark area on the right side that would seem to unbalance the picture in terms of its light and dark spaces. However, without adding any additional detail to the background behind her, he combines several dark tones and a faint light vertical band that both serve to suggest the concept of a room behind her as well as present a visual stop to the eye’s restless wandering. A triangular yellow spot just outside of the white band further pushes the eye to return to the more comforting aspects of the woman’s face. Contemplating this face, it is impossible not to notice that the close set, pupil-less eyes are mismatched, one being significantly smaller than the other and half-closed. The shape of the face seems somehow distorted, as if it were curving around a central point that exists outside of herself. This impression is particularly emphasized with the line of the long nose. The lips, too, seem smaller on the inner side of the face. This overall impression of the face as being curved around a central figure provides a glimpse into the personality of the woman (dedicated to issues outside of herself, perhaps in the form of home and family as might be suggested by the dark room behind her) as well as keeps the eye centered upon the column of her face and existence, allowing it to stray only as far as the mysterious white band or yellow triangle before being forced to return again to the interest and intricacies of her presence. Both paintings also make prodigious use of dark colors and shaded spaces. The dark browns of Duchamp’s stairway and background almost match perfectly the browns of Modigliani’s woman’s hair and the background just behind her. Modigliani adds some dark blue and nearly black into his background sufficient to suggest the walls and doorway of a room, but provides little additional detail. For both artists, the lightest area of the painting appears to be the intended focal point. Duchamp provides his ‘end’ figure with a great deal more light color in the form than previous reflections carry, particularly in the rounded shape of the woman’s abdomen at approximately center right. Other figures, or portions of figures, become darker as they go backward in time so that the darkest shape to be seen is that standing at the top of the stairs, so dark it nearly blends into the background colors. A great deal of the harmony of this piece, though, is established through the monotone approach taken, in which Duchamp uses only varying shades of gold to depict the image. Modigliani, on the other hand, allows himself a broader palette, including variations on the complementaries of blue and orange. There are actually four spots in the painting that appear to contain the same degree of lightness, but only two of which are immediately attention-focused. These are located at the bridge of the nose and at the inner side of the face. The light spot at the bridge of the nose insists on retaining the eye as long as possible while the light space at the side of the face contains the vision, redirecting it back into the face. A light space at the inner edge of the neck and another along the top of the shoulder help to provide a sense of space rather than containing, but a careful look at the shoulder reveals a near arrow pointing back into the lines of the face. The use of complementaries is subdued, using the palest shades of orange to offset the very light and very dark blues that comprise the woman’s eyes and the far wall behind her, which reduces the obvious excitement such color schemes normally produce while still providing the painting with a sense of fiercely controlled passion. This becomes emphasized once one finally notices the darkened blue and orange patterns visible on the woman’s shirt at the bottom edge of the painting. Both artists were working during the same relative time period, between 1910 and 1920, which had a profound effect upon the ways in which they found expression. This was an era of prosperity and modernization, when the entire world it seemed was becoming mechanized and the world of art was being questioned by such new technologies as photography and motion pictures, which could produce realistic representation at least as well as the artists in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost. In response, artists began experimenting with those forms of expression that the camera couldn’t touch, such as the colors and shapes of emotion. There remains a significant difference between the art produced at the beginning of this decade, such as Duchamp’s, with the art produced at the end of the decade such as Modigliani’s, which is primarily divided by the advent of World War I in 1914. As a result, one can see the cubist influences of the first decade of 1900 in the work of Duchamp, with a lighthearted, warm light and a sentimentalized emotional content. This is sharply contrasted with the darkened spaces of Modigliani’s painting in which the woman seems bent out of shape, dark and mysterious, impossible to penetrate and guarded in her forced interactions. Where Duchamp’s woman seems to glow from within as she floats down the stairway, Modigliani’s woman is smudged with dirt and seems off-balanced in her motionless state. Although both works of art were based within the same time period and contain similar subject matter using similar materials for representation, these two works of art represent entirely different points of view. Through the use of color and composition, the artists manage to achieve a sense of balance and solidity even as they work to express the imbalance and malleability of the world in which they find themselves. Duchamp’s world is full of bright possibilities which Modigliani’s is full of suspicion and concern for the future. While neither fell back into the use of symbols as a means of expressing ideas or into the traditional formalized schools of art in which realistic representation was the highest prized attribute, both did conform to some of the rules of presentation in terms of composition and color scheme in order to make their artwork stand out as a valid expression of human endeavors. Works Cited Duchamp, Marcel. “Nude Descending a Staircase #2.” Oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1912. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. Modigliani, Amedeo. “Head of a Woman.” Oil on canvas. Bridgeman Art Gallery, c. 1915-1918. Wikipedia contributors. “Sublime (philosophy).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. (2006). July 30, 2007 Read More