Marcel Duchamp And Max Ernst: The Bride Shared (Clarendon Studies In The History Of Art, 21)

Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst: The Bride Shared (Clarendon Studies in the History of Art, 21)

Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst are two of the greatest names associated with Dada and Surrealism, the iconoclastic art movements of the early part of the twentieth century. This detailed study brings their work into close proximity for the first time, examining the structural interaction of "ready-made" belief systems in their productions (Catholicism, masculinism, hermeticism). These artists are revealed as precursors of our postmodern obsessions with male and female identity and cultural fragmentation.Reviewimpresssive study .../ copiously illustrated and pleasingly annotated.../ For any reader wishing to deepen their knowledge of these particular paintings the book is a welcome shake-up of more canonical readings. Dr Hopkins finely spun theoretical framework - dancing as it does from Rosicrucianism to Dutch Symbolism to Descartes and back again - sometimes veers toward hermeticism itself, but nonetheless opens unexpected new prospects on the four central works./ A.A., Art Newspaper, July-Aug 1999.About the AuthorDavid Hopkins is at University of St Andrews.