The King and Queen Surrounded by Swift Nudes
Marcel Duchamp
1912
45 1/8" x 50 3/4"
Oil on canvas
Credit: Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950

Essay: Dr. Donald Parks

Marcel Duchamp’s The King and Queen Surrounded by Swift Nudes (45 1/8" x 50 3/4") is an oil on canvas located in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Modern and Contemporary section of The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection. This picture (1912) was painted on the reverse side of Paradise (ca. 1910-11). Unfortunately, this picture, now full of cracks, has not stood time as well as many of Duchamp’s other works of art. The King and Queen’s velvety surface and elegant warm tones of brown, ochre, oyster-white and coral against a dark background give the work an Old Master flavor and is complemented by a cool viridian/blue that is found in the works of Titian and Tintoretto. At first glance, one sees the strange combination of visceral and mechanical shapes and volumes that were important to Duchamp. The long, thin diagonal column connecting areas of volume and breaking at points into funnels, hinges and segments of two connecting totem shapes transept by a pipe-like broken volume suggest remnants of moving manufactured parts. The pipe-like lines of approximately equal length are repeatedly set as accents and directing forces within the composition to help e x p r e s s the subject matter of the picture.

With further examination, one discovers that this picture is all about space and volumes; constructed light and weighty color volumes set in shallow space. The ordering of spatial relationships of shapes, which make up the expressive and the transferred qualities of machine-like parts, give way to strange, visceral shapes. These shapes, which are anatomical allusions, are developed around a central diagonal spinal axis of split and transfixed volumes reinforced by their delicate viridian/blue, coral, rich brown, ochre and oyster-white tones that become the subject matter.

The painting is made up of Cubist/Futurist techniques: not Courbet (the father of “retinal” painting); not the sensuous, architectonic painting structure of Cézanne; not the enigmatic imagery of Odilon Redon; not Picasso and Braque; not color theory, but chronophotography (the measuring and recording of time intervals through photography) and the concept of a fourth dimension (a theme of motion in a frame of static entities) caught on canvas through brush strokes and paint. The picture idea is created by the vivid, glowing, dramatic contrasts of the blurred-like lines, the sharp juxtaposition of the color units, the use of many details from Matisse-like segmenting black lines with roughly triangular compositions, the connective-ness of the color shapes and their relationship to each other. The two complex vertical, multifaceted totem/columns placed to the right and to the left of a diagonal spine complete the picture facts. According to Duchamp, the relationship between the artist and the canvas is that every picture exists in the mind before it is put on canvas, and always loses something when it is turned into paint. Here, the expressive intent of the picture idea is developed through the use of light, line (segmented edge to edge), color, space, and volume. Together these plastic elements are the tools that generate the aesthetic quality of motion.

To analyze this picture, I first diagramed the three major units: the diagonal spine and the left and right totems. The diagram begins with the long, thin, diagonal column connecting
areas of volume and breaking at points into funnels, hinges and segments that then lead the viewer to two connecting totem volumes that are transept by a pipe-like broken volume suggesting remnants of moving manufactured parts. The central diagonal column acts as a spinal picture axis. This leads the viewer from the lower center of the composition upward and around to the right and then to the left. The top of the diagonal column is transversed by a bluish splintered pipe, which weaves over and under the spine and connects the two skewers of the right and left totems. The left totem volume is set out in space while the right totem is set in space. The bluish-green splintered pipe at the top acts as a repoussoir for the left totem pushing the left color volume out into space; the pipe also helps to stabilize the middle ground. The space to the right almost merges with the ground (the under surface of the painting) because Duchamp uses less rich color than in the left sculptural volume and the surface looks flat.

The spinal diagonal axis made up of the fan-curled shapes, creates a diagonal cross of oyster-white, which is a series of fractured lightweight cylindrical units, pointing out and up into space. The structure of the axial plane creates the symbol of a cross (a Para diem of an icon), which becomes the vehicle that connects the picture ideas of the left with the right side of the composition. The oyster-white color is pristine and integrated with the light coral color that helps to accent the curving affect by creating a chiaroscuro in each fan shape. The fanlike shapes take on the transferred value of flight, which also helps to encapsulate the concept of time and motion or a photograph of a bird trapped in flight.

Our eyes move upward from the lower right corner through a blunt reclining heddle (a working unit of a weaving machine that carries the yarn up and under) that acts as a coaster while also providing direction for the eye to move along the axial plane. The heddle shape at the bottom of the spine creates a projector leading our eyes through the fan-shaped fractures, which curve out like falling leaves, engulf the space making up the central column that is enveloped by the rich rose/brown Venetian ground. This Venetian unit also supports a decorative Sienese droop and concave fans that consist of delicate rose and white melting into oyster-white shapes. The shapes also have a transferred value of a flaming arrow moving from the bottom to the top and then under the bluish transept (the part of a cruciform church that crosses at right angles to the greatest length). These volume shapes return falling back down into the left side of the picture, over the top of the bluish transept transporting the viewer to the next unit of mechanical-like volumes set out into space.

The two totem units to the left and to the right of the center are made up of broken Matisse-like lines that help to hold and release the color units together as they burrow and melt into the rich coral/brown space. The eyes never rest while they move from one volume to another. The spinal axial travels up and off the picture plane. The skewer line of dark umbers pierces the left totem and travels down the center of the mechanical-like shape. This shape appears to move out into atmospheric space. Here, the totem of light colored shapes quickly become more ochre with soft patties of white butter melting from the outside down and into shallow spaces that further push the volumes downward. The volumes continue to fall off the edge of the picture plane. However, we return to the picture plane via a wedge shape of rich rose-brown space just under the diagonal spinal chord. The left totem is constructed of structural chords of color emanating from the light rose/oyster-white tones to yellow ochre and then to a Dutch Master’s brown. The weighty series of volumes that move downward and settle over the Flemish deep tonal quality of sepia and umber hues are in contrast with the central axial column of light and fluffy action.

Towards the bottom of the left totem, a cluster of mechanical volumes moves the eye to the right totem through several gentle curves. This slightly embed curve connects to a bolder curve that helps to transport the eyes to the right side of the picture plane. The curves also echoed on the right become less animated and more static in space. These resting curves melt into a series of flattened volume shapes of less detail. The shapes on the right appear to be broader because of their flatness qualities. Even though there is a connection between each of the three volume units, this area becomes the rest stop for the returned action.

At the right, the heddle shape serves as a coaster. The whitish color of the coaster helps to move the eye up to the right totem. The totem is developed out of flat geometric color volumes set on top of the ground but settled into the space. The device that keeps the totem from totally moving back in space is the diagonal volume that transepts a gentle curving tubular line that moves in and out of the space. The tubular line acts as an aesthetic mechanical device that appears to move back and forth like a pendulum. In the top right section of the painting, the aesthetic activity further enhances the quality through a series of hook-like units of volume. The eye then travels up and is engaged with the transferred value of a soft billowing curtain-like series of shapes being pushed by a gentle breeze, which is in contrast to the bulky, dark shallow volumes on the left of the right totem. Across the top of the curtain-like shapes is an area that appears to look like a shelf. The bluish-green series of wedge shapes mimic the heddle unit at the bottom. This striking blue color draws your eye to the extreme left back down into a full circle of the picture idea. Duchamp has created a renewed interest that keeps the eye roaming up the spinal chord, down to the left totem, across the bottom to the right totem, up to the top right and across the top and back down again. Along the way, the viewer has absorbed numerous details that vary in plastic qualities helping to complete the picture idea.

The entire painting becomes episodic. The viridian tones are cool in nature and help to push the totem back while the coral, ochre and rose/brown colors help to push the color volumes out into space. The color volumes of the left totem establish a powerful vertical column that has a weighty sculpture affect. The spinal column is light and airy in nature. The right totem is flat and fixed in space. Again, the machine imagery has given way to Duchamp’s strange, visceral shapes. The anatomical spiral unit and the column-like totem units create allusions of transitional action from one area to another.

Duchamp has entered into his own unique reality and produced an utterly new form of painting. The volumes on the left appear to be more organic-rounded stacked rising up, and the totem on the right breaks down into flat geometric and curving volume shapes. The viridian/blue color at the top helps to balance the weightiness of the lower picture plane. There is a definite balance between the light tones and the dark tones, a characteristic that also appears, with a varying emphasis on color, in the paintings of Manet. The French title, Le noi et la reine traversés par des nus vites (The King and Queen Surrounded by Swift Nudes), conveys a message that one might receive from casual translation: traverses also means “run through,” as with a sword, which also creates the idea of motion. As we continue to examine this depiction, the artist’s intent seems to collaborate the picture idea through the relationships of the central axial spinal volume, the viridian/blue volume and the traversés of the two totem units on both the right and left side of the picture. These totems (columns) are in the Venetian tradition to the left and the Florentine tradition to the right, being balanced by the Sienese quality in the center.

In conclusion, Duchamp painted with a transferred value as one winds up a reel of moving picture film and with each turn on a large reel, it becomes a new “shot.” The novelty helps to establish the drama of rhythmic action on a static picture plane. Each of the corners of the picture has been painted into special units at the bottom and structural volumes that merge into space at the top. Like a photograph in a photo album, these structural elements enframe the entire composition. The chromatic waxed quality of the surface exemplifies the early fresco of the Etruscan tradition. The illustrative aspect of columns breaks down into geometric volumes and spaces that become more expressive than decorative.

In The King and Queen Surrounded by Swift Nudes, the big “E” is “the artist’s
“E" x-pression, the painting. It is not a record of what he looked at, nor is it the artist’s, nor is it his feelings about what he looked at. It is a new, third thing, born of the interaction of both the past and the present percepts, those images that come to your “mind’s eye” due to past experiences. The picture has a strong sense of design, executed in delicate, harmonious color, with expressive line, convincing modeling, effective lighting, and a rhythmic, spacious composition. The picture is a series of explorations of the artist’s transformation of his creative experience of machine-like motion into an aesthetic expression. The King and Queen is all about shapes, space, constructed color volumes set in space, and the ordering of spatial relationships of light and weighty volumes.