Something About Art

The Independent, "The loo that shook the world: Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabi".

Fountain, as full of meaning as an egg is full of meat, changed art for ever. It had always been clear to thoughtful observers that the link between an artist's skill and the merit of his work was a false one. Some of the greatest painters in the world, such as Watteau or Goya, possess a limited technique, and many of the most brilliantly virtuosic and intricate produce art of no ultimate value.

There has never been any value in the proposal that the harder an artist works, or the more skilfully detailed his craft, the better the work of art in the end. The link between labour and product was not decisively broken until Duchamp, however.

Perhaps the larger context helps us to understand why this happened in 1917, and not before. Tristan Tzara, the founder of Dada and a thinker in tune with Duchamp, said in his 1918 "Dada Manifesto" that "a work of art should not be beautiful in itself, for beauty is dead. A work of art is never beautiful by decree, objectively and for all. After the carnage we still retain the hope of a purified mankind."