In the Manner of Duchamp, 1942-47: the years of the "mirrorical return"

61. Duchamp, Writings, 27.

62. Duchamp, Notes, no. 5.

63. Duchamp, Notes, nos. 4, 12.

64. For a different point of view, see Adcock (as in n. 29), esp. 48-49, where he finds a source for the infra-thin in Esprit Pascal Jouffret's concept of "an infinitely thin layer [couche infiniment mince]," thereby deriving the idea from Duchamp's thinking about the fourth dimension. The phrase is from Jouffret's Traite elementaire de geometrie a quatre dimensions ... (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1903), a book Duchamp is known to have read. The problem, as Adcock later admits in a passage on tracing and other techniques that leads into another discussion of Jouffret's "couche infiniment mince" and Duchamp's infra-thin, 51, is that "This note [like the notes on the infra-thin itself] do not deal specifically with the fourth dimension.... This is true for many of his notes. They do not involve four-dimensional geometry overtly, but they make more sense with the workings of geometry in mind." Fourth-dimensional thinking is essential in understanding the earlier Large Glass, and it does throw some light on the work Duchamp did from 1942 until his death, particularly on the relation of molds to castings as inside-outside reversals (see Adcock, 168-69). But geometry does not help the reader better understand the relation of the infra-thin to tobacco smoke or to the heat remaining on a chair from which one has just arisen. The facts remain that there is not a single mention of the fourth dimension in the series of notes related to the infra-thin, and that Duchamp insisted to Rougemont that the concept "eludes our scientific definitions."

65. Duchamp, Notes, no. 35.

66. Reprinted in Duchamp, Writings, 191-92; Andre Breton, Anthologie de l'humour noire (Paris: Sagittaire, 1940).

67. Duchamp, quoted in Tomkins (as in n. 1), 328.

68. Duchamp, Notes, no. 44.

69. Ibid., no. 9.

70. Ibid., no. 104. See also Duchamp, Writings, 87: "In a two-dimensional plane--the vanishing point corresponds to the center of gravity, all these parallel lines meeting at the vanishing point just as the verticals all run toward the center of gravity."

71. Duchamp, Writings, 30; and idem, Notes, no. 150 (recto).

72. There is a rough sketch of the Juggler in Duchamp, Writings, 65. More detailed drawings, as well as a much fuller explanation of his function, can be found in Duchamp, Notes, nos. 149-52, p. 2.

73. Duchamp, Writings, 66.

74. Duchamp, Notes, no. 46.

75. See, in general, Clair (as in n. 29), in particular, 46. Important notes referring to the use of photography in constructing The Large Glass can be found in Duchamp, Writings, 38, 51; and idem, Notes, no. 147.

76. Duchamp, Writings, 85.

77. Duchamp, 1994 (as in n. 12), 103; and idem, Writings, 72. For the first phrase, I have altered the translation in the latter.

78. Duchamp, Writings, 88.

79. Both the Maywald and Bellon photographs were first discovered by Herbert Molderings, though Jean Suquet first published the Mavwald version (see n. 80 below).