The Large Glass

The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, most often called The Large Glass, is an artwork by Marcel Duchamp.

Visual analysis

The Large Glass is a complex piece which dominates the space around it. It consists of two glass panels, suspended vertically and measuring 109.25? x 69.25?. The entire composition is shattered, but it rests sandwiched between two pieces of glass, set in a metal frame with a wooden base. The top rectangle of glass is known as the Bride?s Domain; the bottom piece is the Bachelors? Domain. It consists of many geometric shapes melding together to create large mechanical objects, which seem to almost pop out from the glass and ever-changing background.

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All forms on the glass are outlined with lead wire and filled in with earth tone oil paint. The colors range from pale grey to gold to dark brown and black. Some figures are bumpy and cloudy, and contain the dust left on them during the time which the unfinished work lay dormant, which seems to be an attempt at capturing the dynamic passage of time in a sedate work.

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The Bride is a mechanical, almost insectile, group of monochrome shaded geometric forms located along the left-hand side of the glass. She is connected to her halo, a cloudy form stretching across the top. Its curvilinear outline and grey shading are starkly offset by the three undulating squares of unpainted glass evenly spaced over the central part of the composition. The Bride?s solid, main rectangular form branches out into slender, tentacle-like projections. These include an inverted funnel capped by a half-moon shape, a series of shapes resembling a skull with two misplaced ears, and a long, proboscis-like extension stretching down almost as far as the horizon line between her domain and that of the bachelors?. Her top-located domain is almost completely monochrome, with a wash of beige comparable to the cool colors of a cloudy sky.

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The Bachelors? earthbound, lower domain is a collection of much warmer, earthier colors of brown and golden tones. The Bachelors? Domain centers on the nine "Malic Molds." These dark brown shapes have a central vertical line, some with horizontal ones across them. They resemble the empty carcasses of clothes hanging from a clothesline, much more than they do actual men. They are interconnected through a spider web of thin lines, tying them to the seven conical cylinders. The cylinders range in color, and move in stages from nearly transparent on the left side, to translucent in the middle, to almost opaque on the far right. The opaque ones have swirling dark brown and gold colors and are almost solid three-dimensional forms, whereas the translucent ones are more ghostly outlines. They are connected in a line from tip to base and form a half circle. This rainbow-like shape is impaled centrally by a pole which connects them to the "chocolate grinder" at the lower part of the glass, and to the X-shaped rods that dominate the top center of the Bachelors? Domain.

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There is a chocolate grinder which is made up of three drum-like structures, arranged in even spacing around a circular platform. They are appropriately chocolate brown in color, and are very textural, with a series of ridges running around their outside and spiraling out from the center. There are three tiny legs that barely seem to support the entire structure.

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The rods interconnect to form a large X, and look like they recede into space. One end is smooth and cylindrical, while the other tapers at the end and is capped with a sphere. The spherical ends are connected to two more rods that run vertically down to yet another machine. It is a contraption similar to a waterwheel with spokes of a bicycle wheel. This is tilted away from the viewer, almost to the point that it is indistinguishable. This in turn is placed on two elongated ovals, which are almost like runners. These support the wheel, along with the framework of a metal box that encases it and intersects with the Bachelors? "feet".

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On the right-hand side of the Bachelors? Domain are four faint, circular images. The top one is a perfect circle. A little below that are three circular images tilted away from the viewer. The first has twelve spokes, each spoke made up of three lines. The middle is made of six concentric circles. The bottom is prickly-looking circle with a small hole in the middle, made up of outward spiraling lines.

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The composition?s most dominating feature is the series of spider web cracks, running diagonally from the top right to bottom left of the Bride?s Domain, and in an almost figure eight from the top left to bottom right of the Bachelors? Domain forming flowery, flowing designs. Neither cracks nor paint disrupt the right, central plane, which is devoid of decoration, and around which the action of the art plays out.

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The piece is placed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art gallery beside The Green Box, the selection of Duchamp?s own notes on The Large Glass. It stands in front of a window, from which natural light creates a varying atmosphere depending on the time of day, the weather, and the season. It is also surrounded by his other works ? both paintings and "readymades" ? which form a background which the work otherwise is lacking. In this sense, this image of a frozen machine becomes extremely dynamic and engages the viewer when the viewer examines and contemplates the work.

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