Rethinking the Image

Image source: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-the-bride-stripped-bare-by-her-bachelors-even-the-large-glass-t02011 (Accessed: 15 June 2025). © Estate of Richard Hamilton and Succession Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London

Marcel Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915-23) (reconstruction by Richard Hamilton, 1965-66), London, Tate Britain, 277.5 cm x 175.9 cm, oil, lead, dust and varnish on glass.

Currently on view at the Tate Britain is a display which explores the collaboration of British artist Richard Hamilton and French artist Marcel Duchamp in the 1950s and 1960s.^[1] It revolves around Hamilton’s reproduction of Duchamp’s magnum opus, commonly known as The Large Glass, which was produced for the UK’s first major Duchamp exhibition in 1966.^[1]

Initially a painter, Duchamp is best known today for his ‘readymades’ series, beginning in 1913, in which everyday objects such as a bicycle wheel or a snow shovel were presented as works of art.^[2] These ironic works challenged the very definition of art, igniting debates which, well over one hundred years later, are never far from the surface of modern and contemporary art dialogue.

Duchamp rejected what he described as ‘retinal art’ in favour of a new type of art which appealed to the mind rather than the eye, inviting considered thought rather than pure visual pleasure.^[3] This radical approach became the defining principle of what is now known as conceptual art, and is particularly evident in The Large Glass, which Duchamp considered to be his most important work.^[2]

The Large Glass cannot be neatly categorised as either a painting or a sculpture, although it could be said to contain both painterly and sculptural elements. The upper panel, known as The Bride’s Domain,^[4] features an ethereal, insect-like creature as the ‘bride’, while the lower panel, known as The Bachelor Apparatus,^[4] depicts a set of ‘bachelors’ whose futile mating ritual is facilitated by a system of unusual mechanical devices.

The Large Glass is extremely complex in both subject matter and execution, to the point that any convenient, straightforward explanation of the work would be insufficient, but it is commonly understood as a complex allegory of human desire. Duchamp described it as a ‘hilarious picture’.^[5]

Hamilton’s reproduction of The Large Glass stands obelisk-like at the centre of a small, octagonal room. Aligned perfectly with the room’s entrance and bathed in soft natural light from above, its presence is both alluring and challenging. Its form and content are immediately recognisable, but its status as a reproduction is equally obvious, as it contains none of the damage and deterioration that is so familiar in the original.^[4][6]

In other words, Hamilton succeeds brilliantly in presenting The Large Glass as it would have originally been conceived.^[4] Its complex details are bright and crisp, and its aluminium frame exudes the clinical exactness of mass-produced objects such as those which Duchamp selected as ‘readymades’. Despite Duchamp’s opposition to ‘retinal’ art, the visual appeal of the work is transfixing.

Discreetly occupying the walls of the room in deference to The Large Glass are a number of related works by Hamilton. These include original paintings which refer to the main work in both subject and theme, several highly detailed preparatory drawings, and works which serve as studies for individual parts of The Bachelor Apparatus. The tranquil and reflective mood of the display allows for thorough navigation of the craftsmanship – of ideas as well as materials – which is so evident in these works.

Perhaps the most enigmatic of the supporting works in the display is Oculist Witnesses, which predicts the hypnotic configuration of ovular forms seen in the lower-right of The Large Glass.^[7][4] Sitting within its substantial aluminium plinth, it appears completely otherworldly, like a mysterious, unexplained artefact from an uncontacted, highly advanced planet.

[1] Tate (no date) Marcel Duchamp and Richard Hamilton. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain/display/modern-and-contemporary-british-art/marcel-duchamp-and-richard-hamilton (Accessed: 15 June 2025).

[2] Riggs, T. (1997) Marcel Duchamp 1887-1968. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/marcel-duchamp-1036 (Accessed: 15 June 2025).

[3] Rosental, N. (2004) Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). Available at: https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/marcel-duchamp-1887-1968 (Accessed: 15 June 2025).

[4] Tate (no date) The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass). Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-the-bride-stripped-bare-by-her-bachelors-even-the-large-glass-t02011 (Accessed: 15 June 2025).

[5] Henderson, L. D. (1999) ‘The Large Glass Seen Anew: Reflections of Contemporary Science and Technology in Marcel Duchamp’s “Hilarious Picture”’, Leonardo, 32(2).

[6] Philadelphia Museum of Art (no date) The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass). Available at: https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/54149 (Accessed: 15 June 2025).

[7] Tate (no date) Oculist Witnesses. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hamilton-duchamp-oculist-witnesses-t15852 (Accessed: 15 June 2025).