Page 63 - Studio International - April 1965

work from his earliest youthful period, beginning in
1904 when he was still in his 'teens. There are charming
watercolours and pencil sketches, in the manner of
Toulouse-Lautrec. There are newspaper illustrations
recalling Wilette. There are tender impressionist paint-
ings ; less tender Fauve paintings, and even a few
Cezanne reminiscences. Duchamp's older brother,
Villon, is very much in evidence as a mentor.
Clearly, Duchamp began as a well brought-up artist
whose search for a style was fairly conventional. He had
considerable skill as a draftsman, slightly less skill as a
painter—but had he stuck with it, he obviously could
have been a good painter.
But somewhere, somehow, he became Duchamp.
Rather suddenly, it would appear. From that moment to
this, he has never wavered. The 19th century man who
gave birth to Duchamp was instantly killed off.
The catalogue of pranks this Duchamp performed is
rich and varied, and oddly enough, can be reconstructed
without too much loss of effect. It is still downright
funny to see the bottle of perfume, Belle Haleine and
make the right associations. It is still enchanting to see
the door with two jambs from rue Larrey, even if it does
look somewhat neat and forlorn in the shining milieu
of the gallery. And it is still piqueing to look at the
Green Box and wonder what degree of the mathematical
mind all the Duchamps seemed to have was put to work.
Still another compagnon de la route—in his own way,
of course—was honoured in a large, splendid exhibition
at the lolas Gallery. Rene Magritte has not slackened his
pace. He still produces visual conundrums of great
power and wit. His violent protest against those who
insist on seeing in him a symbolist seems justified. The
quick coupling of mind and eye required of his paintings,
and their queer specificity, defy symbolic analysis un-
less it be of a very general, oblique nature.
Magritte would not be Magritte if he changed his
technique very much, but there is a marked new ten-
dency in his recent work—a pleasant introduction of
still another kind of visual play. I found it particularly in
the gouaches. The Chorus of Sphinxes for instance,
with its typical green-blue Magritte forest of singular
leaves, offers a disconcerting vision in the sky: cut-out
forms filled in with the same leaves, to be read either as
indentations or as superimposed forms. The rock, the
pipe, the bird, the fish are suggested, but not clearly
specified.
An authentic descendant of Marcel Duchamp is
Robert Breer, a thirty-eight year old painter, object-
maker, and above all, film animator. His spirit of research
is very much in the quasi-serious line of Duchamp and
the quality of his curiosity—especially about moving
phenomena—is similar. Duchamp's play with moving
forms and optical illusion which dates back to 1918,
contributed to the climate which formed Breer.
In his first major exhibition at the Bonino Gallery,
Breer indicates the kinds of preoccupations that led
into his making films I don't know the exact sequence,
but it is probable that, like all children, Breer had been
delighted with the flip-books (usually comic strips)
which become moving pictures with a flip of the thumb.
These primitive motion-picture prototypes, which I
believe were in use early in the 19th century, became
an obsession with Breer. His early flip cards were often
used in his films, and certain of his film drawings are
used again as flip cards. From a simple book of cards,
Rene Magritte
Chorus of Sphinxes 1964 Breer branched out, sometimes putting half a dozen of
Gouache these on a skewer so that the spectator can go on flip-
lolas Gallery
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