View allAll Photos Tagged Digging
So glad my teens still like to play in the dirt.
at Bolsa chica beach.
Taken with my Dad's Nikkor 105mm lens he bought in Japan in 1968, manual focus.
Just a few bottles from the '30s I dug up recently. The Guelph 5¢ G.B.E. quart has a chip and some pings along the top etc but from what I gather this bottle is rare so I'm keeping it. The rest of the bottles are okay and are now soaking in soapy water.
After a week of extreme mud and mess, the footings have been excavated.
Seems there's enough clay to open a pottery!
Roll on Monday when the concrete arrives.
News Flash!
While the gale has been blowing, the rain torrential and the night as black as coal, my dog fell down the newly dug footings for our extension.
Down into a huge water filled trench of mud and clay.
Guesse who had to scramble in to lift her out??? Not my husband!
The poor wee dog was trembling and up to her belly in freezing water. Both dog and I were in dire need of a hot bath and sympathy!!
DAEWOO DH130 Digger
McKibbin Bros Cullybackey County Antrim
It has been a while since this digger has done any digging by the looks of things.
Part of the McKibbin Bros collection pictured at the Killyless Open Day 2016
19:15
I've been thinking -- the first aid kit I found in the kitchen, it's new. Brand new, and very well-stocked. It has the construction company logo on it, so I guess that's who provided it -- in case a worker was injured. Which makes sense, but...
It just seems...damn convenient. I can't tell if I'm being unreasonably paranoid. I like to keep my paranoia reasonable. I want to go up to the third floor for the best chance at cell reception, but I don't want to leave Ramirez alone.
I wish I knew whether to feel sorry for him, and protective, or smug and self-righteous about what happened to him.
If he's NOT involved, and he WAS actually attacked -- I guess I can feel extra crappy, later, if it turns out he has nothing to do with any of this.
I'm making us something to eat. At least the wood burning appliances haven't yet been replaced by electric ones or we'd be down to breakfast bars and trail mix.
20:03
Soup, crackers, and coffee have warmed and relaxed us. Ramirez is using the brandy for a painkiller, but I'm going to steer clear and stay clear. Someone might try to get in here and I need to be ready.
20:45
Ramirez isn't feeling much pain, now. He's starting to consider the cool factor of the eventual scar. He's pretty darn cute when he's helpless and tipsy.
I need to focus.
When he's like this, I feel guilty for thinking he might be involved in this scam -- IF it is a scam. That's not to say I believe the house and estate are haunted, but there could be odd... things going on, mixed in with the direct, human involvement. I don't dismiss "odd" out-of-hand.
I'd like for Ramirez to not be involved in this, obviously, but I can't believe blindly. He's asked me to read aloud to him from some of the journals. He says working on that will take his mind off the pain and help to pass the time. I pointed out that he probably didn't feel any pain already, but that I could use the distraction too.
21:48
We've been going through all of the diaries, journals, and notes; jotting down points of interest and dates, or guesses at dates, putting together a timeline of events. There are inconsistencies, glaring ones.
The stillborn baby seems to be the focal point, things are relatively normal until that event. Well, American Gothic normal, I suppose.
There's talk of rats, a lot of talk, and some property disputes with locals, but it was after the baby's death that things got "out of control odd." Supposedly, the wife was sent abroad to recover after the stillbirth, but the maid writes about her downward spiral in health and spirits like she never left, and also remarks on the husband's health deteriorating. He apparently became obsessed with the spirit world of the Native Americans in the area, the same ones with whom he was having the property disputes.
The husband's new spiritual interest is apparently what brings the Native American man in the painting, to the estate.
Oddly, though the husband's journals indicate he sent his wife away almost immediately after the death of their child, the maid's diaries suggest that some time passes -- maybe as much as a year. Ramirez has begun adding the Latin translations to our timeline. These journals were kept by the family friend, the doctor, and he had another opinion about things.
He insists the infant's death was unpreventable and even "a blessing." He says the child was "imperfectly made" and that those imperfections caused the infant's death. He must have meant some kind of terrible birth defects.
Ramirez isn't sure if the doctor's delicate description of the infant's condition was a product of the era, or an effort to spare the husband and wife's sensibilities, in the event they were ever to lay eyes upon his notes.
Whatever the case, he didn't allow either of them to view the body, and there's a suggestion that the coffin that was buried was empty, that the baby was buried in an unmarked grave to prevent anyone from seeing its condition.
Ramirez said that might have been done, not only to protect the emotions of the family, but to keep "freak collectors" from stealing and preserving the body to peddle for sideshow exploitation.
Something about the unmarked grave, and Ramirez' remarks struck a cold chord in me, and I quickly looked through the paintings for one in particular -- the gardener at night.
I thought it was a depiction of a gardener because he was digging in the garden.
Digging.
(This story originally appeared on my main page. Archived here. The rest of the original story, with new images, will follow.
Original comments are below.)
-:|:- Brit 💋 Applewhyte -:|:-, Elite Fashion Model - Vicky Macnelly and 38 more people faved this
Alex Allen
9y
nice shot
Teddi Beres
9y
Alex Allen (hugs) Thank you!
cold pail (deleted)
9y
I should have left you some cake!
Teddi Beres
9y
Mmmm, cake! (giggles)
belladonna quixote
9y
I love this story! (If you ever need an extra, let me know!)
Teddi Beres
9y
belladonna quixote Thank you, and you know I will! (hugs)
Chatwick Harpax
9y
The Brandy seems to be coming in quite handy? Maybe you need to investigate that angle a little bit more In-depth ;)
Teddi Beres
9y
Chatwick Harpax (giggles) SOMEbody has to stay sober! We're in danger!
-:|:- Brit 💋 Applewhyte -:|:-, Candy Rinq [mabelcnls Resident] and 28 more people faved this
belladonna quixote
9y
Ted, pick his pocket while he's passed out. lol
Teddi Beres
9y
belladonna quixote There is NO way I'm sticking my hand into his pocket. That's EXACTLY his plan. (giggles)
-:|:- Brit 💋 Applewhyte -:|:-, Candy Rinq [mabelcnls Resident] and 29 more people faved this
belladonna quixote
9y
OMG! That's a RAT! (jumps on a table)
Teddi Beres
9y
belladonna quixote (falls over, giggling)
-:|:- Brit 💋 Applewhyte -:|:-, ARnnO PLAneR and 41 more people faved this
Erebus Darkfold
9y
Hey, I look super sinister! Excellent work!
belladonna quixote
9y
Dark and creepy. You guys scare me. lol
Art Dreamed Award
Art Dreamed Award ;
Teddi Beres
9y
Erebus Darkfold Just captured the inner you. (giggles) Thank you!
Teddi Beres
9y
belladonna quixote Hooray! It's working! (huggles) Thank you bunches!
Chatwick Harpax
9y
Cannot wait till the next installment, on pins n needles ;)
Teddi Beres
9y
Chatwick Harpax Yay! Thank you lots and lots! I'm so glad you're enjoying it and...the wait is over! (There's a new Bluff image up.) hugs you
Precious Note (deleted)
9y
This is my favourite so far!! I love the concept and composition!
Teddi Beres
9y
Precious Note That's super terrific to hear! I was trying to create a sense of depth, along with the darkness and I'm all bouncy-happy that you like it! (hugs)
Strobist info:
Nikon D300
SB800 in the hole with colored gel, bounced off white garbage bag to spread light. SB900 on stand with reflecting umbrella to the upper left of subject. Lighting equipment was removed in post production.
Noah and Cody dug for hours. I like the depth of field here...comes from shooting with my telephoto lens from my viewpoint flat on my belly on a beach blanket!
This was taken at Nash Point yesterday - I've no idea what the man was looking for but in my imagination thought it might be gold!!!
Pendleton, Indiana (01-28-09) The snow storm that swept across Indiana and much of the Midwest Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning left Pendleton, as well as the rest of Indiana, digging out much of Wednesday.
Many businesses and all of the area schools were closed because of the road conditions. Devon Price and George Price, for the Pendleton-Gazette, were out Wednesday morning and captured what the snow storm left behind.
Here is Abel using an attachment on the tractor for digging holes for grow bags. We continually try to automate the more laborious tasks in the nursery to become more efficient and keep our crew safer.
This echidna was busy trying to protect itself from us by digging into the clay , under a fallen tree .
The photo lets us see the line outlining the spine area .. this 'valley' is seen because both sides of the echidna are lifted up & out, to let those very powerful 'spade-tipped' legs & feet dig freely , while acting as a shield.
80th birthday cake with two interests, gardening and bowls. Redeemed voucher from a ladies night at Mitre 10. Proceeds towards youth suicide, they raised several thousand dollars
Digging to get access to the other side of the duct work in a dirt crawlspace with an entrenching shovel
Be careful what you wish for, we got the big snow storm that I wanted and a bit more... 21 inches worth! For the first time in 27 years I missed a shift because of weather. Good thing, it snowed harder this afternoon than I can remember including the blizzard of '93. I would be stranded at the tower... without beer :-)
This was after the 2nd shoveling !
Work continues this year on the University Link light rail tunnels. This photo shows the gantry cars lined up and connected to the tunnel boring machine that is being re-assembled to dig the northbound tunnel between Capitol Hill and downtown Seattle. The gantry cars carry several items including the electrical transformer for the TBM, grout tanks and pumps and utility piping. U-Link tunneling will be completed in 2012 with passenger service expected in 2016.
New Bedford firefighter Lt. Eric Hartford tries to dig out an ambulance carrying a patient to St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedord on Day 1 of the storm that dropped 2 feet of snow on SouthCoast. For more photos from the week of Jan. 25, 2015, from SouthCoastToday and The Standard-Times, click here ...
Photo by PETER PEREIRA
Work to build a permanent Sounder train station in Tukwila includes construction of a new parking lot by contractor Absher Construction; the parking lot should open in December. New train platforms nearby are being built in phases to allow uninterrupted passenger service. The project is slated for completion next spring.
And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass when he went in unto
his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.
Genesis 38.9
My Subject is Masturbation
Inspiration is provided by what I sense to be a universal condition, which manifests in my own
personal feelings of impotence. Mentors, deserving of particular mention, are Goya,
Duchamp and Marcus Simon Sarjeant. I have spent the last years in pursuit of mutually
onanistic release with these three men.
Of the three, I have given to Goya most of my time. Duchamp has won my greatest affection
and Sarjeant has my understanding and empathy.
Goya, at least in his later years, had the good grace to withdraw and act out his urgency in
private. Duchamp made no bones of making a public performance of his tendencies from an
early age. Sarjeant ejaculated defiantly, if prematurely, and faced the consequences.
My Subject is Bachelor Machines.
Onanism breeds desperation, arrogance, contempt and a perverse independence. Arrogantly
I do not intend to try to forge links between these three men. There is no need to do so as
these links already exist in me and my obsessive interest. Creation is, after all, the union of
two (or more) disparate elements to engender a new. So I will attempt to expose, rather than
manufacture, reveal rather than produce.
My Subject is Exhibitionism
Thus, I realise that any two or more elements could be combined and any suggestion for
coupling is as fecund (or as barren) as the next, or as chance allows. The ‘choice’ of
constituents is purely subjective and perhaps says more about the writer than the written
about. To elucidate, or to restrict conjecture slightly, I should like to state that my personal
interest lies in non-reproductive coupling. My goal is an exposition and celebration of sterility.
My Subject is Autoeroticism
‘The Observer’, Sunday 14th June 1981: ‘Shots at Queen-Treason Charge’
A seventeen-year-old youth was charged under the Treason Act yesterday after six blanks
were fired only yards away from the Queen on her official birthday.
Marcus Simon Sarjeant, unemployed of Folkstone, Kent, was charged that “at the Mall he
wilfully discharged at the person of her Majesty the Queen, a blank cartridge pistol with intent
to alarm her”.
1
My Subject is Desperation
My introduction to the Bachelor Machine phenomenon coincided with my first really
considered exposure to the work of Marcel Duchamp. This cathartic ‘Road to Damascus’
conversion occurred on board a ‘Laker’ aircraft whilst returning from New York. I was 24.
The catalyst took the form of a book by Octavio Paz entitled ‘Marcel Duchamp: Appearances
Stripped Bare’. As with any ‘conversion’ the initial response manifested itself in an outburst
of enthusiasm but with very little understanding. However, the damage had been well and
truly done. Stretching this conversion metaphor even further, this attempt at coherence is a
presentation of a possible ‘New Trinity’: Goya is the omnipotent Father, Sarjeant as the
wayward ‘Sacrificial Son’, and finally Duchamp as the Holy Ghost, the overseer.
A Purple Passage (A socio-religious, psycho-philosophical, art-historical expose!)
In the beginning was the word, and the word was Bot, and Art seeing that Bot was good didst
venerate him. And Art begat a son in his own likeness, after his own image, and did call his
name Duccio. All the days that Duccio lived were numbered seventy years. And he begat many
sons, the eldest of whom was Giotto. And all the days that Giotto lived were seventy-one
years and he did also bring forth issue and Art did smile upon his sons, Piero Della Francesca
and Boticelli, whom in their turns did engender Michelangelo and Leonardo, and many less
well-endowed progeny. And it came to pass that Art, now seeing the beauty of mankind,
forsook its veneration of the omnipotent Bot and didst venerate Humanity.
Bot saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented Bot that he had made man
on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. Thus, Bot, recognising his redundancy, didst
scarper. But humanity finding favour in the eyes of Art did prosper.
Art, venerating man, begot and engendered many sons (and the very occasional daughter)
each of whom did venerate man in their turn. Raphael didst know Michelangelo and he didst
conceive and bore a school and they spoke of ‘Harmony’ and they venerated the ‘Ideal’ and
thusly they engendered ‘Mannerism’. And Art, seeing that this was good, smiled upon
Raphael, who begat a son called Titian. Likewise, to him was borne a brother, and his name
was Correggio. And the both did play with light.
Art saw fit to cause a division and to set an enmity between the schools of Parmigiano and
Holbein. Sensing that competition was lucrative, Art didst encourage it. And so were
engendered El Greco and Breughel, and both prospered. Art encouraged their difference due
to the diversity of their produce. But, eventually, Art growing tired of excess did give
preference, for a time, to the Northern School, which bore much fruit. Rubens didst conceive
and brought forth Van Dyke who in turn did engender Frans Hals, the father of Rembrandt.
But Rembrandt did venerate the formerly omnipotent (and previously made redundant) Bot
of his ancestors and behold the wrath of Art fell upon him and he did perish in penury.
Rembrandt begat a son, however, and called his name Vermeer.
Vermeer was a true son of Art and put no Bot before Art, and he did flourish.
2
However, Art, tiring of Northern Severity (and who could blame it?), did turn again to the
South, where it engendered Bernini and Tiepelo. The South too did forsake its humanistic Bot
and did engender the deity of ‘Decoration’. In this spirit Art prospered and engendered the
brothers Watteau, Fragonard and Boucher, in the Gallic lands, and they didst attempt to re-
create Eden by disporting themselves freely in elysian bowers. The brothers proved to be
momentarily fertile and together venerated sensuality. Jacques Louis David issued forth
having been begotten as an unforeseen by-product of Boucher’s decadence. David deciding
that man could be excellent did idolise this possibility whilst rejecting man’s squalid ‘reality’.
David was also fertile and did generate the ‘Hero’, and in doing so encouraged Art to venerate
War. And Art, seeing that War was lucrative didst raise David to a position of great power…
twice.
In the Hispanic Peninsula art didst visit Velasquez, as if in a shower of gold, and he did find
himself with child. Goya issued forth from this lineage. But Goya, seeing that War was not
good, did not believe in Bot, he did not believe in man, he did not believe in Art, and thus Art
in a hissy fit didst frown upon Goya and didst smite him with impotence, saying : “Thou shall
forever be onto me as a witness to the people, and they shall point, crying “Behold a Godless
man” and your issue shall be as a manifestation of the impotence of a man without faith, and
generations shall misunderstand and curse thee saying “behold the unhappy composer of
pictures” and many shall waste their time telling anecdotes about the deafness that I shall
visit upon you, and thy name shall be numbered amongst the damned. Outside the schools
and movements of Art shall thou be forever exiled, and the lot of the ‘Bachelor’ shall fall to
thee”.
And Goya, going out alone, was smitten with a blight of compassion for all that he did see for
at that time the peoples of his land were suffering a great travail visited upon them by the
Napoleonic ‘Hero’ generated by David. Goya withdrew in solitude and didst spread his seed
on the plaster walls of his house Thus doing, Goya exorcised his demons.
My subject is Parthenogenesis
Oscillating back and forth dramatically between arrogance and a guilty conscience, guilt is
the hidden weakness inadequately masked by arrogance.
I am discovering the extent of my own vanity and my own insecurity.
Together they combine to form the nourishment for my obsession. They are just different
aspects of the same thing. They are the complementary opposites which chemically unite to
form a ‘love gasoline’. They are also manufactured by the disrobing Bride to create and satisfy
her own needs. They meet and deny each other on the jaded plains of Onan. They combine
not through acceptance of each other but blindly and desperately. They exhaustively pretend
they have never met before, but their meeting is as constant as their inability to acknowledge
each other. A confrontation is absolutely essential. To continue, insecurity must be
sufficiently overcome (not ignored), to give the vanity of opinion free rein.
3
There is an exposition. I am not writing about Bachelor Machines. I am attempting to
construct one.
“THE BACHELOR GRINDS HIS CHOCOLATE HIMSELF"
Duchamp.
Bachelor: Unmarried man; (hist.) young knight serving under another’s banner.
Machine: 1. Apparatus for applying mechanical power, having several parts each with definite
function.
2. Person who acts mechanically and without intelligence or with unfailing regularity.
3. Instrument that transmits force or directs its application.
Already these dictionary definitions begin to suggest hitherto unconsidered possibilities.
Initially, there seems to be the germ of an idea which could perhaps be summed up as
relentless and mindless solitary servitude. However as with every word combination the
riches of this union go far beyond what a mere joint definition might suggest.
The Bachelor Machine is, of course, much more than this. Duchamp somewhat defined the
limits of its legend when he constructed ‘The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even',
which must remain the Bachelor Machine par excellence. It might seem logical that it would
be best to use this one example to further discover and elaborate on the defining peculiarities
of the subject of this particular investigation. Duchamp’s ‘Machine’ is probably the most
complete, as well as being the most conscious example of a ‘Bachelor-Machine’
, being as it is
the conceptual projection of an intense awareness of the machine-age myth. However, it
would be a mistake to believe that this was purely a post-Industrial revolution phenomenon.
The recorded machinations of war, property, money, state and finally even death itself have
produced excellent examples of complete and partial ‘Bachelor Machines’ strewn throughout
the history of Myth and mankind. After an in-depth consideration of the "Large Glass" I would
like to deal with Goya as an originator of imagery of this nature and Serjeant as a recent
manifestation of the Bachelor machine drive.
"The Large Glass"
The initial problem encountered with a description of the "Large Glass" is knowing where to
begin. "The Bride stripped bare by her Bachelors, even" cannot be considered as a separate
and complete work. For it to be fully appreciated a study of earlier Duchamp pieces is
imperative to understand his developing iconography. “Indeed, in my whole life, as you rightly
point out, I have done but one work”.
When Duchamp made this statement to Pierre Cabanne, he was not negating all his other
pieces but was including them in his ‘magnum opus’
. Unknown to Cabanne he had
already spent many years working on ‘Étant donnés’
, a work which was not to be
revealed to the world until after Duchamp’s death. The full title of this last piece is:
Given: 1. The Waterfall
2. The Illuminating Gas
4
This title first appeared in 1912 amongst the earliest notes for the ‘Large Glass’. This would
suggest that they are both parts of the same work. Traces of what were to become obsessive
recurring motifs can be found in many of his earlier drawings, most markedly in his ‘hanging
gas-lamp’ of 1903, drawn when Duchamp was 16 years old. What was later to manifest as the
‘cemetery of uniforms and liveries’ had its initial expression in a group of drawings of 1904—
05 in which he portrayed tradesmen and public servants such as ‘Policeman back view’, ‘Knife-
grinder’, ‘Gasman’, ‘Road-Sweepers’ and more especially ‘Funeral Coachman’ and ‘under-
taker’. The importance of these early manifestations of recurring motifs will become more
apparent later.
Duchamp’s work presents a complicated, some might even say convoluted, machine. I believe
though that Art has provided us with very few pieces of equal penetration and metaphorical
ingenuity. His subject was constant throughout his lifetime, and besides the pieces already
mentioned above I believe that ‘standard stoppages’, ’R.Mutt’, ‘Why not sneeze, Rrose Selavy’
and even his obsessive interest with chess are all part of his ‘Large Glass’ and constitute not
only his work, but his life.
Duchamp always expressed indifference to effect. His oeuvre dealt obsessively with its
opposite i.e. cause. The sagacious stoicism of some of his statements is devastating. For
example: "Given, that I suppose I suffer a lot”. This is a Given, i.e. as in a mathematical
equation or chemical theory, it is just understood, accepted as being the case, immutable.
It is an effect to which we must develop an 'indifference' because of this immutability. But, at
the same time, Duchamp wishes to recognise/ understand/ expose the source of that
suffering. His tools to aid his discovery are humour, irony, and indifference. His was a constant
quest to discover the cause, that is the real and then to give this a concrete expression
through an extended metaphor describing, his/our inability to combine the cause and the
‘given’ because of our fascination and fear of the effects. To discover the elements is not
enough, to combine them remains the problem. Creation must be, and is, by its nature, an
act of transcendence. Duchamp dealt with our inability to transcend due to our lack of
acceptance of ourselves; our self-involvement blinding us to self-knowledge. In Duchamp’s
art we are eventually reduced to the role of voyeur without any real understanding, and even
with little choice as to the subject of our gaze. Man as the voyeuristic, narcissistic, onanistic
specialist is the desperate subject of Duchamp’s relentless study. It was this situation, or view,
which caused Duchamp to attack the retinal specialists of the Art world. The recognition of
his own inability to overcome this impotence must have formed the unalterable aspect of
Duchamp’s suffering.
The driving force in the ‘Large Glass’ is, as will be seen, towards unity. However, the animal
instinct is towards individual survival which causes fear due to the instinctual realisation of
corporeal decay. This is a very basic Eros-Thanatos conflict and is very much the seedbed of
the Bachelor Machine. It is the ‘architectonic base’ of the piece. The pathos of the piece and
its accompanying humour is embodied in this failure to unite.
5
Duchamp remains for me the most humanistic artist of the 20th Century. His considerations
were never retinal, visual, aesthetic, plastic (or whatever the ‘art-term’ in vogue) but were
purely involved with the contemporary human condition and the causes thereof. This would
make Appolinaire’s early prediction strangely prophetic.
"It may be the privilege of an artist as free of aesthetic preoccupations and as concerned with
energy as is Marcel Duchamp to reconcile Art and the people"
"The Large Glass" is composed of two principle elements. The upper half being the domain of
the Bride whilst the lower is that of the Bachelors. This ‘separation’ is an essential aspect of
all Bachelor machines.
‘The Bride’ is "a sort of apotheosis of Virginity i.e. ignorant desire, blank desire (with a touch
of malice)" We see her as she hangs down from shiny metal gallows which "could simulate
the maidens attachment to her girlfriends and relatives" - a strange form of strangling security
which provides what Duchamp terms a "solid base on firm ground".
"The Bride is basically a motor, but before being a motor which transmits timid power — she
is this very timid power", itself.
So it would appear that the bride preserves a degree of autonomy, as she is self-motivated,
self-driven: "This timid-power is a sort of auto-mobiline, love gasoline that, distributed to the
quite feeble cylinders, within reach of the sparks of her constant life, is used for the
blossoming of this virgin who has reached the goal of her desire. The whole graphic
significance is for this cinematic blossoming".
The Bride has many appellations all of which are of extreme significance and tell us about the
properties and aspirations of the Bride. The most significant of these names is probably
“Arbor-type" the others are: "steam engine" "skeleton" "Pendu femelle”, "the plough",
“Agricultural machine", "Virgin" and "Pendulum”.
The "cinematic blossoming" has its graphic description as a greyish cloud with hints of flesh—
colour tints (in fact the only truly amorphous shape on the glass) hanging from above. This
aspect of the Bride also has many names including "Halo of the Bride", "Top Inscription"
"Milky Way” and "Title".
This becomes, in a way, the "hanging out of flags” of the Bride, so that her having achieved
stripping and orgasm is made apparent. It is through this “top inscription”, which acts as a sort
of score board, that she communicates her desires and successes to the Bachelors. However,
this does remain a one-way communication as the males have no such organ of
communication. This Halo also contains "elements of this blossoming, elements of the sexual
life imagined by her, the Bride, desiring". It exists more to reveal the Bride to herself rather
than to be of erotic stimulation to the Bachelors.
The Bride reveals herself nude twice: “The first, that of the stripping by the Bachelors, the
second appearance that voluntary imaginative one of the Bride. On the coupling of these
6
two appearances of pure virginity - on their collision depends the whole blossoming, the
upper part and crown of the picture". So, it would appear that the actual act of being stripped
would not suffice to facilitate blossoming and that without the narcissistic/onanistic stimulus
of the Brides seeing herself the orgasm would not be possible. Duchamp calls this "mixture,
physical compound of two causes (bachelor and imaginative desire)" and tells us it is
unanalysable by logic. This might suggest that the situation could be instinctively understood
or sensed. The blossoming is not in fact the orgasm but "last state of the nude Bride before
the orgasm that might make her fall".
The "Milky Way" contains the "three nets" or "pistons" which form a "sort of cipher through
which the Milky Way supports and guides the said commands". These nets contain an
alphabet of communication. According to H.P.Roche these nets form "the original mystery,
the cause of causes, a trinity of empty boxes".
Duchamp makes another important differentiation between the domain of the Bride and that
of the Bachelors in that he states that the “principle forms of the Bachelor machine are
imperfect; rectangle, circle, parallelepiped, symmetrical handle, demi-sphere, i.e. they are
measurable whilst in the Bride “the principle forms are more or less large or small" and
"have no longer, in relation to their destination a measurability”. Here Duchamp is
introducing a new unknown dimension. This reduces the Bachelor to the purely diagrammatic,
the predictable, as in a mathematical equation, or in architecture, where with the aid of a
measured diagram, one can construct a 3-dimensional reality of which the diagram is a mere,
but faithful, representation. Duchamp then tells us that "the pendu femelle" is the form in
ordinary perspective of a Pendu femelle for which one could perhaps try to discover the true
form - a direct challenge. However, with this more or less, large or small, non-measurability
we find ourselves beyond the confines of mere geometry and therefore a discovery of the
true form (meaning) which is "unanalysable by logic" must be reached by some other method.
Duchamp has given us a glimpse of a reality which is beyond our understanding, a reality of
which we ourselves are a mere projection or shadow.
The "wasp" or the "sex cylinder” controls the "spark of desire magneto" which causes the
“motor with quite feeble cylinders" to run. It draws the automobiline from the "reservoir”
or tank of love gasoline. This would equate the desire magneto with the spark plug of a car
engine and the reservoir with a petrol tank. Although the language is quite explicit the
representation is more amorphous and the exact placing of these particular aspects of the
Bride’s mechanics is not always possible. Directly below the Bride on the far left, above the
line indicating the horizon that breaks the "Large Glass" into two halves, is the Brides fallen
transparent garment. To the right of this invisible garment is the similarly invisible "Wilson
Lincoln System". This was a visual trick invented by Duchamp but never plastically realised.
The idea was that when looked at from one position one could see an image of Wilson and
from another only Lincoln was visible. In other words what we see depends on our point of
view. The Wilson Lincoln system’s function will become more obvious later on. Finally, in the
Region of the Bride, just below the tail of the Milky Way, is the region of the "shots pulls".
These become the target or goal towards which the malic moulds aspire.
7
The Bachelor Domain
As has been already stated the ‘Bachelor Domain’ has a measurability and follows geometric
or physical laws. The "Given" relates to this secondary domain. "The Waterfall" and the
"Illuminating gas" are aspects of this domain. As they are "given" or understood there is no
explanation of from whence they might have come. We are told that the “Waterfall, a sort of
waterspout coming from a distance in a half circle over the malic moulds" activates the
mechanism. It is akin to breath, it supports basic life, causing the chariot to come and go, the
“Bottle of Benedictine" falls and returns to its place, the wheel of the Water Mill turns, and
the chariot intones its litany. "Slow life. Vicious Circle. Onanism. Horizontal. Buffer of life...”
this litany is the bachelor’s theme, the leitmotif of the celibate life and is relentlessly intoned
by the chariot, which we are told is made of "emancipated metal” which makes it “free of
all gravity in the horizontal direction". This causes the chariot to slide back and forth on
runners at a jerky pace. Hidden within the bosom of the chariot is the "landscape of the water
mill”.
In the centre of the bachelor’s realm we find the “chocolate grinder”. Its constituents are a
Louis XV Chassis, three rollers and a necktie provided “at the four corners with very sharp
points" and a bayonet which holds up the Large Scissors. The opening and closing of the
Scissors manifests a constant in response to the sliding of the chariot which in turn causes the
gyrating of the chocolate grinder. This continuous, relentless, life-long masturbatory action is
summed up in the statement that "The Bachelor grinds his chocolate himself".
To the right of the grinder, we can see the “oculist witnesses” who are represented by three
circular disks similar to diagrams used on optical charts. Above these three is a smaller disc
which “ought to have been a magnifying glass”
.
Having thus somewhat surveyed the topographic elements of the Large Glass it now remains
necessary to further consider its machinations. There are "unseen elements” within the glass.
Aspects which remain invisible, but which become important in its working process. I shall
try to deal with these considerations when I arrive at the point of their interrelated existence.
It must not be forgotten that Duchamp left his "Large Glass" finally unfinished" in 1923 and
this is the state in which it still exists today. However, its completion, I believe, coincided with
Duchamp’s death, his infrathinning, in 1968 on October 2nd
.
The Blossoming of the Bride I
The Bride has at her "life center" a "pulse needle!” which is “mounted on a wandering leash”
and has "the liberty of a caged animal". The pulse needle’s task is to "promenade in balance
the sex cylinder which spits at the drum the dew which is to nourish the vessels of the filament
paste". At her base is a tank of “Love Gasoline”. This gives the Bride autonomy, and therefore
sovereignty, over the Bachelors. This tank is part of the “Wasp” and the gasoline is stated to
be her secretion which she draws from her tank by osmosis. The Bride lubricates herself. This
8
love gasoline is the motivating force of the Bride’s life and Desire. In fact, life and desire are
inseparable, desire is the essence of the Bride. It is both a sexual lubricant and nourishment
and is kept in a reservoir: "contained in the oscillating bathtub (Hygiene of the Bride)”
. The
Wasp even regulates the "Atmospheric pressure of her domain” as the filament substance is
extremely sensitive to "differences of artificial atmospheric pressure". This filament
substance resembles a "solid flame" at the moment of blossoming. This seems like an obvious
clitoral metaphor.
The Bride initially works herself up. She contains a built-in ventilation system in the form of
an "interior draft" which is partly the mechanism for controlling atmospheric pressure, but it
also is the expression of a "vital-breath" which Duchamp compares to a car which: "wants
more and more to reach the top (of a slope), and while slowly accelerating, as if exhausted by
hope, the motor of the car turns over faster and faster, until it rears triumphantly" It is
through this striving which is transmitted via the three pistons of her halo that the Bride
awakens desire in the Bachelors below
The ‘Bachelors’ do however not really exist. They are just a "cemetery of uniforms". But as in
Genesis, God’s breath instils life into Adam, so in this "creative" act the breath of life in the
form of illuminating gas coming from "who knows where" enters the "malic moulds" and the
‘Bachelors’ come to life. "The cemetery of uniforms and liveries" is a very apt title for the
malic moulds. Duchamp assigns to each one a role, they are: (1) Priest (2) Department-Store
Delivery-Boy (3) Gendarme (4) * Cuirassier (5) Policeman (6) Undertaker (7) ** Flunkey
(8) ** *Busboy (9) Station-master. These form a collection of public servants to meet all the
needs of the Bride. What we see however is only the moulds into which the gas passes, we
do not see the ‘Bachelors’ themselves. "The moulds were rather a sort of + Catafalco or coffin.
A coffin does not have the shape of the dead person inside it, likewise the moulds are
standing-up coffins of each form”.
* Cuirassier — armourer
**flunkey — Liveried servant, footman
***bus-boy — waiters assistant
+ Catafalco — Decorated structure to carry coffin or effigy of a distinguished person during
funeral service, or for lying in state.
GAP (2 pages missing).
9
Part 111
The gas from "one knows not where" enters the malic moulds. These malic moulds are, by
the way, "cut by an imaginary horizontal plane at a point called the point of sex". This is the
first of four castration allusions relative to the male apparatus and its functioning. From the
start, the impotence of the Bachelor is insinuated by merely geographically locating the
moulds. As the gas fills the moulds "The casting so obtained would hear the litanies sung by
the chariot, that ‘Slow life, vicious circle, onanism refrain’ of the whole celibate machine, but
they will never be able to pass beyond the Mask = they would have been as if enveloped,
alongside their regrets, by a mirror reflecting back to them their own complexity to the point
of their being hallucinated rather onanistically”.
After filling the moulds, the gas begins to emit from the top of each malic mould. “The gas
passes along the unit of length in a tube of elemental section and by a phenomenon of
stretching in the unit of length the gas finds itself (congealed) solidified in the form of
elemental rods". To put it bluntly, the ‘Bachelors’ achieve erection. What then follows could
be interpreted as the second of the, aforementioned, four castration allusions.
"Each of these rods, under the pressure of the gas in the malic moulds leaves its tube and
breaks through fragility, into unequal spangles, lighter than air…retaining in its smallest parts
the malic tint, liberated at the mouth of the tubes tends to rise. The spangles are stopped in
their ascent by the 1st parasol". It would seem that the reason for the elemental rods breaking
into spangles is the pressure put on them by the onrush of gas, or their own enthusiasm. Their
great need is also their downfall. The greater the need the more intense is the fear of failure,
which in turn leads to impotence — the “vicious circle” of the chariot’s litany.
Thence follows a most amusing description as to how the spangles fare in their journey
through the seven parasols or sieves. Initially they are "straightened out” and lose their sense
of up and down and of their "position". This sounds akin to a military academy training. They
are straightened out to such a degree that "necessarily there is a change of condition in the
spangles" the re-conditioning is successful and "they can no longer retain their individuality
and they all join together at B"(the last sieve). So, it seems that having been thus trained they
are now ready for the passing out ceremony, so they get in uniform line.
"The spangles splash themselves each to itself”. i.e. change their condition from "Spangles
which are lighter than air with a determination to rise” into “a liquid elemental scattering,
seeking no direction, a scatter suspension- on their way out of B, vapour of inertia, but
keeping its liquid character through instinct for cohesion, the only manifestation of the
individuality (so reduced) of the illuminating gas in its habitual games with conventional
surroundings-what a drip!”.
This desperately funny description of the confusion of the ‘spangles’ reminds me of a Woody
Allen movie entitled ‘Everything you've ever wanted to know about sex but were afraid to
ask’. The particular sequence was one in which Allen, as one of the multitude of Spermatozoa,
10
was preparing himself to enter the race to reach the ovum. They each individually had the
tendency to rise, to reach that goal, each recognising that only one would actually make it.
This was the moment for which they had been trained/ conditioned/ prepared. Eventually the
time comes for the launch and they link up holding hands in mutual support (congeal) As they
run up the tube Allen quips that he hopes the man isn’t masturbating as he doesn’t want to
end up splashed across the ceiling. As Allen flings himself into the void, he screams "well at
least he’s Jewish". The sense of confusion pre-ejaculation though is pure Duchampian. Luckily
for Allen his bachelor was not grinding his own chocolate!
It is whilst passing through the sieves that there is a third allusion to castration which
manifests itself in the crossing back and forth of the scissors at sieves 4 and 5, which is
activated as we have seen, by the movement of the sleigh to the onanistic chant. It is at this
point that they are "straightened out" and lose their sense of direction etc. The gas here
becomes a liquid rather like as in a distillery as used in the manufacture of Brandy (Eau-de-
vie). They end up on "the slopes of flow in the form of a toboggan but more of a corkscrew",
which causes the drops to splash to the bottom to form the "region of the three splashes".
This region with the toboggan is, we are told by Duchamp, invisible. At the end of the
corkscrew the splashes explode and are fired upwards in a last desperate attempt to reach
the domain of the Bride. But the role of the scissors is to cut the wings of the flying splashes
and send them back to the region of the weight with nine holes (also invisible), which collects
the dazed drops and carries them upwards. They seep into the oculist’s hideout, where they
are metamorphosed into the ‘Sculpture of drops’ - art - which in turn are projected upwards
towards the upper half to "meet the nine shots". However, the ‘sculpture of drops’ are not
real drops but an image of them. Each drop "acting as a point and sent back mirrorically to
the high part of the glass to meet the 9 shots = Mirrorical return — each drop will pass the 3
planes of the horizon. Here on the horizon they traverse the 'Wilson-Lincoln system’ (i.e. like
the portraits which seen from the left show Wilson and seen from the right show Lincoln”.
The Horizon is also the region of the Brides Garment
The Blossoming of the Bride II
To consider "the Large Glass" as purely a sexual metaphor or an allegory of sexual impotence
and frustrated pro-creation would be a gross over-simplification of the situation. If it were
read thus one would be forgiven for believing that Duchamp felt a romantic attachment to
the idea of paternity and was mourning the absence of unhindered genital caress leading to
pro-creation. This is in no way the case.
In 1954 Duchamp married Alexina (Teeny) Sattler and during an interview soon after stated
"I carefully avoided all this until I was 67 years old. I married a woman who “because of her
age, could not bear a child". He also made an anti-family statement in the same interview
saying he rejected “The family which forces you to abandon your real ideas and exchange
them for something accepted by itself, society and the whole show". So, it would appear that
the two-dimensional representation, which is an obvious mechanical metaphor for a sexual
situation in our own known dimension, is itself a metaphor for yet another reality,
11
imperceivable at first, but which becomes more lucid if one picks up on the clues Duchamp
scatters throughout his work.
The role of the male apparatus in the ‘cemetery of liveries’ exists only as a reflection of the
Bride’s desire; in that it is totally lacking in autonomy or personal motivation. It exists, but it
can only act at the instigation of the Bride. The Bride appears to have autonomy or power.
But, what if the actions of the Bride were but a reflection of a separate and invisible/
inconceivable other reality? Perhaps another mirror exists and shows us a reflection of the
Bride as she in turn has seen a reflection of herself in the excitement of the malic moulds.
Duchamp suggests this in his notes in the "Green Box":
"The Pendu femelle is the form in an ordinary perspective of a Pendu femelle for which one
could perhaps try to discover the true form. This comes from the fact that any form is the
perspective of another form according to a certain vanishing point and a certain distance".
"Perhaps make a hinge picture (folding yardstick, book…) develop the principle of the hinge
in the displacement 1st in the plane 2nd in space. Find an automatic description of the hinge.
Perhaps introduce it in the Pendu Femelle"
Duchamp spent much of his life’s work on experiments involving this hinge principle. For
example, there is the ‘Glider containing a water mill in Neighboring Metals’* on hinged glass.
He constructed hinged doors and windows through which vision was obscured such as ‘Fresh
Widow’** of 1920, and ‘The Brawl at Austerlitz’*** of 1921.This matured into the hinged but
un-openable Spanish doors of ‘Etant donne’**** through which one could not possibly hope
to see (being made of heavy oak) but which further confounds our expectations by revealing
to us the Bride in all her naked glory. There is an aspect of this very contradiction in his ‘Door,
11 rue Larrey’*****, of 1927. This piece deals with the ambiguity of "fact” or that which we
believe we know. A door cannot both be opened and closed at the same time — or can it?
This hinge principle is also at work on the horizon line of the ‘Large Glass’ where the Lincoln/
Wilson syndrome confuses our senses by changing the image we perceive into something else
as we change our point of view. This aspect of the piece never achieved a plastic
representation on the glass and Duchamp somewhat justified himself when he stated in an
interview that the Art produced in any age was its mediocrity, and that the greatest ideas
never achieved plastic representation. It is through the "invisible ingredients" or the
incommunicable that Duchamp expresses his sense of failure and inherent impotence.
Stretching a metaphor (which itself is a metaphor) having spent some time considering
Lincoln, I would now like to turn my attention to Wilson i.e. to change my point of view.
Wishing to leave the realm of the sexual I want to explore the ambiguous terrain of the
Alchemical and thus doing I close one door to find another has opened.
Now there exists a different "reality" The "Large Glass" is no longer concerned with frustrated
sexual desire, but instead deals with alchemical potency. Alchemy, of course, deals with the
harmonious union of opposites, the combination of base raw materials to produce precious
metal… gold (non-literal). The Human alchemical symbol is that of the Androgyne. In Jungian
12
terms this is considered to be the union of man with his "anima" and/or woman with her
"animus" Duchamp’s works abound with Alchemical references.
"To attain his truth man must not be tempted to dissipate the ambiguity of his being, but on
the contrary accept its realisation” — Simone de Beauvoir.
At this point I feel a need to quote Gilles Deleuze and a statement he made relative to Sacher-
Masoch in his book ‘Masochism’ This statement could easily be about Duchamp. I would like
to suggest there seems to be a strong masochistic element in the work of Duchamp. I believe
this could be a rewarding area for further in-depth investigation.
"He does not believe in negating or destroying the world nor in idealizing it: what he does is
to disavow and thus to suspend it, in order to secure an ideal which itself is suspended in
fantasy. He questions the validity of existing reality in order to create a pure new ideal reality".
This indifference of not negating nor idealizing reality is central to all of Duchamp’s work. This
creation of an "ideal reality" through indifference to apparent reality is pure alchemy, In
Sacher-Masoch’s ideal world the apparently autonomous dictators were to receive no better
treatment than their "underlings".
"The unconscious is an orphan, an atheist and a bachelor" — Gilles Deleuze
Alchemy — an individuation process
"Individuation, becoming a self, is not only a spiritual problem, it is the problem of all life" —
Jung.
In the Spring of 1911 Duchamp painted ‘Young man and Girl in Spring’. This painting deserves
close scrutiny as it contains evidence of his interest in Alchemical processes. It is no
coincidence that he chose in 1914 to paint ‘standard stoppages’ over an enlarged version of
this painting whilst working on the ‘Large Glass’. ‘The Young Man and Girl in Spring’ is a
symbolically loaded metaphor about the struggle to attain individuation (i.e. alchemical union
with self) or to discover the Philosopher's Stone.
There is minimal sexual differentiation between the pair as both stretch with uplifted arms
forming two Y-shaped figures. They are seen stretching towards the branches of the central
tree, which in alchemical iconography is the ‘Tree of Life’
.
The Alchemical symbol for the androgyne is the letter Y which also signified to the Naassene
Gnostics the intimate nature of being which they considered to be both male and female and
also eternal.
The two young people are seen to be standing on separate spheres striving upwards but also
towards each other. This would seem to signify the Brother/ sun, Sister/ moon
incestuous yearning which is at the root of alchemy.
13
Schwarz in his 'Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp’ deals with this incestuous propensity on
a personal level, relative to Duchamp and his sister Suzanne. He theorises that the Narcissistic
and therefore onanistic drive is just a successful re-routing of this drive towards incestuous
unity. On the back of the painting is inscribed: “A toi, ma chere Suzanne Marcel" which would
seem to give some support to this theory.
It must not be forgotten that the ‘tree of life’ remains central both to this painting and it is
also carried over to the ‘Large Glass’, to the Brides description where she is called the "Arbor
type”, which supports her halo and is attached to her motor. This ‘Arbor type’ is the Bride’s
backbone or axis . This ‘Arbor type’ also "has its roots in the desire gears". In the earlier
painting the tree is seen to emerge from a circle. Within this circle which strongly resembles
an alembic (or alchemical vessel) stands a sexless personage whose situation and position is
reminiscent of Mercurius, who is usually represented in an alembic in the same pose in
alchemical iconography .
Mercurius was a hermaphrodite. He seems to be offering something with outstretched arms
to the male figure. This is interpreted as a piece of pink cloth by Schwarz. Pink is traditionally
a female colour. This might refer to the alchemically related custom on Cos of the husband
dressing in a women’s clothing to receive his Bride. There is also a tradition on Argos that the
Bride would wear a false beard on the wedding night . This becomes even more interesting
when it is considered that in 1919 Duchamp drew a false beard on the Mona Lisa and in 1921
had himself depicted as Rrose (pink) Selavy (C'est la vie) on the front of a perfume bottle
entitled "Beautiful Breath, Veil Water". Is Duchamp showing us the waiting "Bride" in her
"Veil"? Is the "veil water" synonymous with the "waterfall" of the "large glass" and "Étant
donnés"? Does the '"veil water" / "waterfall" hide more than it reveals, as the fall of a "veil"
could mask an act of transvestitism? Is the bearded Mona Lisa a projection of the Bride’s
animus or is she using a mask to "veil" her identity? Does she use "Beautiful Breath-water" to
"veil" the stench of cigars or a fellatial aftertaste? Need I go on? She/he embodies all the
questions, contradictions and paradoxes which have been attributed both to the original
enigmatic "Mona Lisa" and the equally enigmatic and sexually androgynous "St. John the
Baptist" — Leonardo had a lifelong passion for Alchemy. He also had a heightened sexual
duality. The fruit of the ‘tree of life’ which is also called ‘The Fount of Youth’ is ideal androgyny.
Below the alembic in Duchamp’s painting is yet another figure. This figure is seen to rest both
on the female (moon) and male (sun) spheres, participating in both. This figure is a
representation of the possibility or the ideal unity towards which both figures are straining —
the androgynous entity which is endowed with eternal youth — the triangle within which the
circle and square are combined.
Duchamp continued to develop this theme right through to ‘The Large Glass’. ‘The Passage of
the Virgin to the Bride’ and ‘The Bride’, both of 1912 show us the gradual development of
the prototype for the Brides apparatus in ‘The Large Glass’ She is a direct descendent of the
young girl reaching a form of maturity. However, following the young man through to the
Bachelor apparatus we discover his dejection and eventual decentralisation/disintegration
into a sort of multiple paranoia lacking in unified identity. Initially he is seen as the ‘Sad young
14
man in a train’ and in ‘Nude descending a staircase’ he achieves a multiplicity which he carries
with him into the Bachelor’s realm where he appears as multiple images of solitary servitude.
All is not so completely clear-cut, however. There exists within the "large glass" another
inherent contradiction which still must be considered. If the moon is the alchemical female
symbol and the sun the male, how is it possible for the Bride to have autonomy and the malic
moulds to act as mere reflections of the Bride's power when in actual physical sun/moon
terms the opposite would be the case.
As in his Mona Lisa, Duchamp has endowed the female element of ‘The Large Glass’ with
male/ sun qualities. He chooses to make the female rather than male the autonomous
element, thus making the sun a female symbol or by inversion the Bride becomes a male
retaining his/her "sunness” autonomy whilst recognising his/her own reflection in the
animus/ anima figure of the malic moulds , this suggests the possibility.
The malic moulds do contain within themselves the possibility of unity. This is suggested by
the ‘Eros Matrix’ title which is another name by which they are known . ‘Eros’ being love and
‘Matrix’ being the oven or the ‘Womb of Love’. However, the possibility is denied when the
Bachelor begins to grind his own chocolate. As the caste is the negative of the mould, so too
the ‘Eros Matrix’ or ‘Womb of Eros’ produces Eros’ opposite. Eros, the god of unselfish love,
has his opposite in Narcissus — the self-loving human. Eros is commonly represented as being
androgynous. So, the androgynous Eros mould produces the Narcissus cast. Self-love
triumphs and denies the possibility which is mirrored in the Bride’s desire. Rrose Selavy is left
waiting at the altar wearing a "veil" to hide his masculinity. The Bachelor Machine cannot
overcome its apparent maleness through fear and therefore loses its "sun" characteristics
and ends up reflecting a possibility back to the autonomous Bride.
"The Spirit is willing, but the body is weak"
“I want to grasp things with the mind the way the penis is grasped by the vagina" — Duchamp.
Arturo Schwarz states that "malic” is a neologism coined by Duchamp . This may be true for
the French original "malique” but I cannot help but wonder if his choice of the word was
somewhat influenced by the English/Latin form of the word through which an allusion might
be made to the androgynous roots of the Christian Adam and Eve myth,
Malic. Malum (Latin) — apple, as in malic acid (i.e. acid derived from unripe (not ready)
apples). This is too much of a coincidence, surely. In Christian myth the apple exists as
the symbol of division, that is division from God and from each other. The apple becomes the
bitter (unripe) fruit of experience which serves to cause the fall. The apple is also the fruit of
the tree of life. The onanistic devil is the protagonist who offers the fruit.
Adam and Eve are unashamedly one, as Eve has issued parthenogenetically from Adam’s rib.
This is further alluded to in the piercing of Christ's side by the centurion to hasten his death,
and with it our (the descendants of Adam and Eve) rebirth. Our rebirth is facilitated by the
opening of Jesus's side as Eve was engendered from Adam's side. Adam and Eve lived in a
paradise east of Eden until they were made aware of their differences by eating the apple of
the tree of knowledge — "And they were ashamed by their nakedness". In other words they
15
only became cognisant of their diverse sexual characteristics through their curiosity. In losing
their androgynous innocence they were driven from paradise, and thereby lost eternal life.
The alchemical drive is a conscious attempt to re-enter into that androgynous state of grace.
In the light of this statement lovemaking, coital union, could be seen as the desperate strivings
of diverse elements violently attempting to storm the walls of Eden. What futility!
The stance of the "Bachelor Machine" is both that of failure and choice, impotence, and
defiance. It is this apparent failure of the procreative act which drives the 'Bachelor
Apparatus' to masturbate, both in fear and loathing. This bachelor apparatus comprises of 9
bachelors, as described by Duchamp. It is the total lack of autonomy and the recognition that
he is being manipulated which causes the 'Bachelor' to despair. There is no visible or
mensurable evidence of any other state existing. The only possibility is an instinctually felt
one. The 'Bride' is a creature of instinct, as is her realm one of instinct, being un-mensurable
also. The 'Bachelor' is caught in his limited world of geometric reality and reason.
Hence his condition remains more wretched than that of the bride. The 'Bride' could achieve
coition if the 'Bachelor' had the courage to see beyond the "evidence" of appearances. It
might be this once bitten, twice shy attitude of the 'Bachelor' which is responsible for the
Christian belief that it was Eve who ate of the apple first and coerced Adam into taking a bite.
Having acted on instinct once, the male apparatus, having failed, is incapable of acting on
instinct again. This is the plight of the 'Bachelor Machine'.
Then along came Rrose.
Rrose didn't usher from a wound, Marcel simply moulted.
16
Given this description of Duchamp’s machine perhaps some statements could now be made
about Bachelor Machines generally. A ‘Bachelor Machine’ would appear to be a fantastic
machine that transforms love into a technique of death. It is also an improbable machine in
that it remains useless, semi-incomprehensible and non-productive. In other words, it
appears to have no reason for existing in itself as a machine governed by the physical laws of
mechanics, or by the social laws of utility. It merely adopts certain mechanical forms to
simulate certain mechanical effects. It is governed by subjective choice and only when the
signs of this subjective determination are accepted and understood does the fog of absurdity
begin to rise. The progenitor of such imagery expects a suspension of disbelief from his
viewers just as a good storyteller would expect the same from his listeners when he intones
his "once upon a time”. The fact that Aesop’ s fables are not grounded in the reality we can
initially perceive does not in any way obscure their relevance.
So, the creator of a ‘Bachelor Machine’ chooses a system, or a catalogue of images, which in
this case is composed of two elements. Element one being sexual. This is split into the male
and the female but either of these aspects can achieve multiplicity as the male does in the
‘Large Glass’. The reverse is equally possible. The second element is a mechanical unit which
is also split into two elements, which corresponds to the sexual male and female units. This
distinction is made in the ‘Large Glass’ by separating the ‘Bride’ apparatus from the male
mechanics. The division is not always as clear cut as this.
17
In Lautreamont's ‘Maldoror’ we encounter just such a fusion: “He is beautiful. .. like the
chance meeting of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table". Instead of
communion on a love bed (seedbed) which would signify life, the union of the umbrella (a
male symbol) and the sewing machine (female symbol) is realised on the dissection table. This
expresses the Bachelor Machine’s specific function, which is solitude and death.
Lautreamont's statement was somewhat predated by Baudelaire when he wrote: “In the act
of love there is a close resemblance to torture or a surgical operation" and even by Delacroix
in his journals. The specific entry to which I refer was penned on the 3rd August 1855 and it
relates to a visit made by him to the ‘Palais de I’Industrie’ where the ‘Exposition Universelle’
was mounted as a celebration of the machine age. Delacroix exclaims: "The sight of these
machines saddens me deeply. I do not like this matter that seems, quite alone and abandoned
to itself, to do things worthy of admiration". This was the heartfelt cry of a true Romantic
spirit against the inhumanity of the mechanical and its incipient dangers and pitfalls.
On the evidence produced so far it would seem that the ‘Bachelor Machine’ could only be a
product of the industrial revolution which would make my inclusion of Goya under the same
heading a trifle awkward. I could argue that the industrial revolution had begun towards the
end of the 18th century, but this argument could not support Goya's iconography as he was
a particularly Spanish artist and Spain was extremely retarded mechanically even up to the
start of the 20th Century. I do believe that Goya's Bachelor Machine manifestations are
products of the machinations of power and class difference, in the less extreme cases, and of
war and death in the more fully realised examples of this phenomenon in his work. I would
not suggest a completely conscious understanding of the mores of the B. M. exists in Goya's
work but I do believe that when a study is made of recurring iconography, subject matter, and
obvious obsessions, it will become clear that Goya sensed his impotence instinctively but
none-the-less obsessively.
It must be stated here that it would be a mistake to equate the Bride or the Bachelor
apparatus with specific and constant gender As previously suggested there is an innate
ambiguity and ambivalence in the ‘Large Glass’ even to giving to the ‘Bride’ the power of
autonomy, or activity, which is traditionally a male attribute. The Bride manages to penetrate
into the region of the bachelors, whilst they fail to enter her domain. The Bachelors become
the passive victims, or just a certain reflective quantity so that the question of pursuer and
pursued is confused. This could be construed as the militant bachelordom of both sexes and
the bachelor machine’s renunciation of procreation.
There is an inherent schizophrenia in all Bachelor Machines. Perhaps it would help if this were
considered as an autonomy/ dependency conflict rather than a straight male/female one.
This ambiguity is at the root of all the forms and significations of Bachelor Machines. For
example, I shall try to show later how ‘The Family of Charles IV’ by Goya is a manifestation of
such an onanistic machine in which the dual gender elements of male and female in the group
are actually aspects of the same Bachelor tendency .
Aspects of impotence made manifest in the works of Francisco Goya
Given :
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"NADA" — "NOTHING" the semi-putrescent cadaver groans as it attempts to disengage itself
from the greedy earth. It scratches its urgent message into a plate with an etching needle.
The word inscribes itself automatically as the corpse turns away in its striving to escape. The
earth holds it whilst the night sky torments it. There is no escape from this nothingness. In
‘Nada’ man’s impotence achieves its most horrific manifestation. This flight from death is
both the outcome and reason for war and its disasters. It is a depiction of the life and death
of Godless man. Man, who has already died to discover that there is nothing beyond, least of
all hope. Nascent man who recognises his own death in the birth pangs of his mother. The
scales cannot even promise compensatory justice, all is black. This son of the soil pulls against
an incestuous union with his earth mother. He aspires towards the sky which taunts him in
return. He engraves his solitary protest, desperately intoning his epistle of one word, his
leitmotif, whilst the litany of his tormentors assails the porches of his ears. Death even, in this
instance holds back its sweet oblivion. Goya’s given: “That I suppose I suffer a lot” shared with
that of Duchamp and all of humanity. "O that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and
resolve itself into a dew”, presented as release withheld.
Given :
‘Saturn devouring his son’
The Saturn myth is one of the oldest and most fundamental of Bachelor myths known to
mankind. Saturn, a Roman deity, is identifiable with the Greek God Chronos. Chronos is the
God of time carrying his scythe with which he had castrated his own father, Uranus, and then
thrown his genitals into the sea. The black blood from the wound seeped into the earth and
engendered the furies.
When Uranus had been thus reduced to impotence Chronos usurped his throne. An oracle
predicted to Chronos that he would be supplanted by one of his progenies and it was this
prediction which was the cause of Chronos’ action.
Goya's ‘Saturn’ is the most ghastly of all his ‘Black Paintings’, which were executed in his later
life. These paintings adorned the walls of the septuagenarian’s house. This painting in
particular needs placing alongside an historical phenomenon, namely the Auto-da-Fe or
inquisition. The inquisition could be seen as the consumption of the wayward sons of the
church by their ‘holy fathers’. Clerics being supposed celibates, or bachelors, destroying the
illegitimate or aberrant produce of their meta-physical loins to preserve their own celibacy
myth. Saturn attempts to assure his own continuity by devouring the very products of that
natural continuance urge. He causes his own ‘impotence’, born out of fear of his issue, or the
products of his own potency. The face and protruding eyes of Goya’ s Saturn express the
depths of his self-enforced desperation and impotence. Fortunately, there exists a
photograph of the original, prior to its removal from the wall of Goya’s house and its transfer
to canvas. Evidence suggest that the restorers took many liberties "in the public interest",
whilst negotiating this tricky manoeuvre.
Nigel Glendinning tells us in his ‘The Strange translation of Goya's Black Paintings’ that: "The
Photograph seems to suggest that the painting originally showed an erect or partially erect
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penis, with a highlight on the foreskin. Gimeno’ s etching of the painting implies a similar
interpretation". So, the product of the union between Saturn and his Bride is devoured in an
anthropophagic orgy whilst the God's obvious potency mocks his fear and desperation. His is
a lust which can never realise fulfilment, a need which devours itself. "To drink blood, to
swallow sperm, and to eat children, means appeasing desire through destruction of its object,
Pleasure requires neither exchange, giving, reciprocity, nor gratuitous generosity. Its tyranny
is that of avarice, which chooses to destroy what it cannot assimilate" This statement by
Simone de Beauvoir is not relative to Goya but rather appears in a book entitled "Must we
burn de Sade?"
I have already suggested a connection between Duchamp and Sacher-Masoch, now I would
like to make an equally tentative connection between Goya and de Sade.
I have somewhat jumped ahead of myself to make an initial dramatic statement. Having done
so, I now plan to back-track and try to present a picture of Goya's complete ‘bachelor
machine' fixation and its development throughout his work.
First, I must more emphatically state the fact that my current attempt at exposing a coherent
connection between Goya and my subject cannot include a methodical exposure of the ‘Life
& Times’ of Goya. It is necessary that to make the proper connections, liberties be taken with
the chronological order of some of these works. I will include an appendix which will
somewhat position Goya relative to the major historical movements of his day i.e.: The French
Revolution, The Auto da Fe, Majaism, The Corrupt Court of Maria Luisa and Godoy etc. This
appendix will end with the invasion of Spain by Napoleon in 1808. I did not feel the need to
continue in such a relentless fashion from then on as the ensuing works, i.e. ‘The Disasters of
War’, ‘The Black Paintings’, and ‘The Proverbios’ can be dealt with here under the general
heading of Bachelor Machine phenomena and therefore they come within the subject matter
of this, the main essay.
Dealing with earlier manifestations of impotence in Goya's work demands tentative and
delicate manoeuvring and I feel that the inclusion of too much historical data would only tend
to cloud the issues and obscure these connections .
Goya’s output of Mythological subject matter is quite small. However, there are three
paintings which I would like to discuss which introduce us to the ‘Virgin’ in her progress to the
autonomous ‘Bride’. They are not well-known paintings and therefore the illustrations leave
something be desired. However, it is the myth behind the subjects chosen rather than the
treatment which fascinates. The first is entitled ‘Sacrifice to Vesta’, painted in 1771. Vesta
was a virgin goddess and custodian of the sacred flame. It was believed that if the flame was
extinguished, calamity would befall the country. Vesta, although a virgin, was also a fertility
goddess because of the nourishing qualities of fire. The vestal virgins were her high
priestesses. They took vows of absolute chastity and any deviation from this was punishable
by death. They also had the power of imparting life, as if a man condemned to death chanced
to meet a vestal, he was immediately reprieved. I think the parallels with Duchamp's virgins
are obvious. This ability to impart life, or autonomy, is common to both, but there is another
aspect which is even more fascinating. When a vestral virgin was accused of dalliance, to
prove her intact state, she would have to bring water back to the temple from the Tiber in a
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"sacred sieve". The vestal had also at all times to wear a veil. So, basically, what we have is an
autonomous veiled virgin whose maidenhead intactness depends on the non-porosity of the
sacred sieve. In the "Green Box" Duchamp tells us that "the sieves of the bachelor apparatus
are a reversed image of porosity"
Imagine that the "sacred sieve" and the "bachelor sieves" are one and the same thing. This
Bachelor sieve which is a "reversed image of porosity" serves to turn the gaseous particles or
"spangles" into a liquid (gas to liquid). It would therefore follow that if the initial component
was a liquid, and this was passed into the sieve, it would then become a solid (liquid to solid).
The water from the Tiber would become ice, thus saving the reputation and life of the vestal
virgin by its '"reversed image of porosity"
It is of some interest that the officiator at the "sacrifice" in Goya’s painting is a man. This
would never have been the case, as Vesta’s sanctuary was entered only by her priestesses,
the Vestal Virgins, except on the festival day, the Vestalia, on the seventh of June, when
mothers of families were allowed to make offerings. This might however represent Tarquin
the Elder, who eventually modified the ruling about the death sentence imposed on wayward
vestals. Initially they would be flogged to death, but on Tarquin’s instigation they were
whipped and walled up alive in a tomb which was sealed after a few provisions had been
deposited therein. Perhaps the pyramid in the background could be considered as such a
tomb, and maybe the "unveiled" female standing to the left could be the sacrificial victim. I
believe that an intentional ambiguity has been set up between the Myth and the depiction of
the event.
The second ‘virgin’ aspect is that of ‘Susanna and the Elders’.
The Story of Susanna, one of the books of the Old Testament apocrypha, tells how she was
accused of adultery by certain Jewish elders who had unsuccessfully made overtures on her
chastity. Her innocence was defended and proven by Daniel, resulting in the Elders being put
to death.
The particular painting to which I refer was painted in 1824/25, just three years before Goya's
death. It is executed on ivory and is part of a series of 22 miniatures including a re-working of
‘Judith and Holofernes’ which had previously manifested itself amongst the ‘Black Paintings’
of the Quinta del Sordo .
The ‘Susanna’ shows an almost naked plump woman