Chess players are madmen of a certain quality, the way the artist is supposed to be, and isn't, in general.

http://www.toutfait.com/issues/issu...

The Chess set is not only aesthetically pleasing (to me), but it looks quite playable. The poster is also elegant. (Did Duchamp participate in the 1925 tournament?)

Many worthwhile images here.

From the article:

Marcel Duchamp's obsession with chess, for which he professed to "quit" making art in the early 1920s, has been meticulously documented by critics and historians. Virtually all of the principal studies of Duchamp's career make reference to his lifelong association with the game, from his early drawings and paintings to his pursuit of the French Chess Championship. However, despite the abundance of literature concerning Duchamp's many chess-related activities, scholars have, for the most part, neglected to regard the history of the game as a potential resource for imagery in Duchamp's work. One segment of the history of chess, the evolution and symbolism of the individual chess pieces, may have been particularly appealing to Duchamp. In fact, one of the chief elements of Duchamp's monumental The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even or The Large Glass of 1915-23 (Fig. 1), namely the Nine Malic Molds, appears to have been derived from chess-piece history.

[end quote]

This is the main page of Tout-Fait, the Marcel Duchamp Studies Online Journal:

http://www.toutfait.com/

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

"From his early thirties, Duchamp abandoned art for chess as a truly obsessive addict. Man Ray commented on Duchamp's marriage to Lydie Levassor-Sarrazin in 1927:

'Duchamp spent most of the one week they lived together studying chess problems, and his bride, in desperate retaliation, got up one night when he was asleep and glued the chess pieces to the board. They were divorced three months later.'

"Another friend, Roche, remarked: 'He needed a good chess game just as a baby needs his bottle.'"

[the above passage is quoted in the interesting book, "The 64-Square Looking Glass: The Great Game of Chess in World Literature," edited by Burt Hochberg (p. 21-22): http://tinyurl.com/pc6m3 . The work of which it is an excerpt is "The Poetry of Chess" by Andrew Waterman. Mr. Waterman, in turn, is quoting Pierre Cabanne's "Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp" who, in turn, is quoting Man Ray. (Aren't primary sources wonderful?!?) ]

But is poor Duchamp sitting in front of his sadly static Chessboard as pitiable a husband as this poor fellow?

[From a book dated 1813, bearing the name of François André Philidor , from the chapter titled "Anecdotes"]

"Ferdinand, Count of Flanders,

Having been accustomed to amuse himself at Chess with his wife, and being constantly beaten by her, a mutual hatred took place; which came to such an height, that when the count was taken prisoner at Bovines, she suffered him to remain a long time in prison, though she could easily have procured his release...."

Alas, poor Count! Condemned to sit there and Count the days...

You may view the anecdote, along with a nice biographical bit on Philidor at:

http://batgirl.atspace.com/ChessAne...

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

http://www.toutfait.com/issues/issu...

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Illus...

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)