Picasso and the Chess Player: Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp and the Battle for the Soul of Modern Art

The brief meeting between Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp in Paris in 1913 was not particularly memorable or friendly: Picasso's French was poor and Duchamp did not consider Picasso a great painter. As journalist Larry Witham (Art Schooled) deftly argues, the two artists' distinct differences represent a central philosophical and aesthetic fissure in the history and development of modern art. While Picasso viewed modern art as a "visual experiment," Duchamp came to believe that art was about ideas and attitudes, "not about paintings or sculptures." Witham places his subjects in the context of both their own work and the aesthetic debates and movements of the early to late 20th century, with the aim of revealing how Picasso and Duchamp became "monuments and myths," after their deaths. While Picasso "democratized art" for the masses to appreciate, it is Duchamp who set the "intellectual horizon" for "postmodern" art professionals. A convincing and highly readable study whose juxtapositions create its originality. 21 illus. (Jan.)