Page 46 - Studio International - January February 1975

Mallarmé's maxim 'to evoke in a specific having seen the performance — see interviews in which he spoke in detail
shade, the silenced object by allusive Cabanne's Entretiens, page 56: 'After I about his life and work. But the
words, never direct'," is not a set of had read the text . ..') and he clearly felt a observant reader soon begins to suspect
instructions for deliberately concealing deep kinship between his own intentions that Duchamp spoke so extensively and
meaning. Mallarmé's symbols cannot and what Roussel had in fact done. There clearly so as not to say something. The
be explained. His poetry is extremely is, by the way, another parallel here, warning is in how cleverly he succeeded
precise and clear, writes Wallace roughly contemporary and no less in pretending that he was a mere
Fowlie in his extensive analysis, but, he interesting. It was Velemir Chlebnikov, `respirateur', whereas in fact he spent
adds, 'its meaning deepens and changes certainly one of the greatest figures in two decades working clandestinely on his
with each reading until one realizes that poetry in this century, who wrote: 'Words last work. Given his ascetic reserve, he
its total or its absolute meaning is not are especially powerful when they have certainly never wanted to have his
attainable.' "a The cosmos is a universal two meanings, when they serve as a private life exposed to public scrutiny; his
synechdoche. In a symbolic living sense of sight for mystery and when, wish was to appear, if not as a balanced
understanding of the world, we go from through the dim light of the common and self-possessed man, then at least as an
symbol to symbol without ever meaning, a second meaning shines.' 31 artist who makes a sharp distinction
escaping their charmed circle. Even These puns, of course, are not merely between his private life and his art,
sexual symbols cannot be reduced to their puns : as rhyme or alliteration are not between 'the man who suffers and the
rational meaning : they are once more only just poetic devices. They belong to the mind that creates' (Duchamp quoted
symbols of symbols. Symbolics is not very essence of poetry. The blurring of these words to T. S. Eliot at the very
semantics. the semantic borders of words and beginning of his important statement
sentences reaches a climax here — the `The Creative Act '31). He even liked to
Duchamp several times recalled the
5. word, if not the whole sentence, has two talk of his art as a mere 'game',
decisive importance that seeing Raymond disparate meanings, or more exactly, the `amusement', 'distraction', and people
Roussel's Impressions d'Afrique in 1912 meaning oscillates between the ambiguity believed him. 'Nothing seems more
had for him. 'It was fundamentally Roussel himself gives an example from a natural, transparent and clear than the
Roussel who was responsible for my glass, poem by Charles Cros : life, the work and the person of Duchamp
La Mariée mise a nu par ses célibataires, Dans ces meubles laqués, rideaux et himself', concludes Pierre Cabanne after
même', he told J. J. Sweeney. 'Roussel dais moroses, a series of conversations in which
showed me the way.'" For Jean danse, aime, bleu laquais, ris d'oser des Duchamp gradually related the course of
Schuster, he clarified the importance of mots roses. his whole life and work. 35 And yet behind
Roussel's 'attitude to machines, an It is still the concern of poetry to call in a work so intellectual and a life so
attitude not at all one of admiration, but doubt the semantic value of language and formally disciplined was a man who
rather of irony.'" In his conversations return its symbolic validity, to reveal suffered and, what is more, created from
with Cabanne, he claimed that Roussel through language that aspect of the world that suffering his work.
inspired his linguistic experiments even in which everything is interrelated, Among the technical, poetic and
though, he added, he did not and could everything mingles, everything means philosophical fragments from the period
not have known Roussel's system of everything. It is that microcosm of inner when the Large Glass and the first ready-
writing — Roussel first revealed it in his reflection in Mallarmé's poetry, where mades were conceived, which Duchamp
book 'Comment j'ai écrit certaines de mes words — which are so much gathered together into his Boite 1914 and
livres' which was published themselves that they no longer which existed only in three copies, we
posthumously in 1 935. receive any impressions from find the unexpected admission :
Roussel was ten years older than outside — reflect off one another until Given that . . .; if I assume that I suffer
Duchamp and his ruthless radicalism, they no longer seem to possess their so much...
paying no heed whatsoever to any own colour but rather to be gradations The formula 'Given that' (`Etant donne')
artistic conventions, could well have been within a spectrum." accompanied Duchamp until the end of
an example to him. Roussel was Duchamp, and Satie as well, went his life, and with it, that hidden impulse
immensely wealthy and thus could afford further when they confronted words with that had once driven him to an extreme
to produce his Impressions d'Afrique a work of art or a musical composition: artistic radicalism, just as it later reduced
without compromises. The performance Duchamp, who provided his ready-mades him to a long period of artistic inactivity.
must have had a tremendous impact, but (and pictures) with titles or texts that had His work was in fact his most private
if it so strongly impressed Duchamp at no connection with the work and often affair, and that was the reason for the
that decisive moment in his development, made no sense, and Satie, who gave his uncertainty and the reluctance with which
it does not seem enough to explain that he compositions titles like Embryons he made it public. What he could not
felt it merely as 'a mad carnival of desséchés (1913) and wrote absurd texts clarify in life, he attempted to make clear
frenzied action and delirious language', as between the lines of his score for Heures in art, and thus to overcome his distress,
Sanouillet suggests." The way to the séculaires et instantanées for piano (1914). his helplessness, his despair. It was a road
Large Glass did not lead from here. It is all the same deliberate calling in that took him from the pictures of his
Impressions d'Afrique was a fantasia doubt of meaning, the meaning of things, sisters — the first is from 1903 — through
that was neither proto-dada nor proto- words, musical phrases. When the the pictures of Virgins and Brides to his
surrealist. It was created by semantic unambiguity of words is last work, Etant donnés, finished in 1966.
unconventional means. Michel Leiris blurred by the creation of an Duchamp's symbolism is not merely a
explains that Roussel's texts went irresolvable tension between various reading of the universe, but also a
through three phases : the first consisted unconnected meanings, we are forced to reading of human destiny in this
in seeking puns or sentences with double leave the world of defined meanings and universe — of destiny of the universe in
meanings; the second involved setting up enter meaninglessness, a pre-semantic human life.
a logical framework linking these state where there is neither significans or The consistent artistic radicalism with
disparate elements together; and the significatum, an area that Peirce called which Duchamp evaded all the usual
third was as strict and realistic a revision `firstness' and considered the true criteria, and at the same time the
of the final text as possible.' domain of the aesthetic. personal reticence that more than once
Duchamp, it seems, realized that This is also a condition of the ready- led him to assume the role of a mystifier,
Roussel's fantasia was not an act of made: the deliberate removal of a thing's resulted in his work gaining the
caprice, but a special order of its own, meaning. Thus the objects are brought reputation of being something deliberately
with its own logic. In fact, Roussel's into the area of the aesthetic or, what is enigmatic and hermetic. And this is the
poetic method is very close to the manner the same thing here, the symbolic. source of the Duchamp legend.
in which the Large Glass came into being, `I took it out of the earth and onto the In its simplest form, Duchamp's
and Duchamp's attraction to it is quite in planet of aesthetics', said Duchamp in a hermeticness is explained as clever
keeping with his interest in puns. conversation in 1953." dissembling. According to this version,
Duchamp knew Impressions very well Duchamp was never concerned with art;
(Sanouillet is wrong to think that he knew 6. he was an 'aesthetic nihilist' while at the
From the end of the Second World
the verbal version only superficially from War on, Duchamp gave a number of same time being a tireless showman who
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