OCTAVIO PAZ — Marcel Duchamp: Appearance Stripped Bare

New York : Seaver 1981 First paperback edition First Print XIII + 211 p., full page ills,chronology SOFTCOVER: (Orig. decor. wrpprs. VERY GOOD) Mexico's leading poet, essayist, and cultural critic "Perhaps the two painters who have had the greatest influence on our century," writes Octavio Paz, "are Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp." If that conjunction surprises at first glance, Paz makes a most convincing case by his analysis and contrast of the two artists. "I have linked their names," says Paz, "because it seems to me that each of them has in his own way succeeded in defining our age: the former by what he affirms; the latter by what he negates, by his explorations." Paz offers his highly personal assessment of Duchamp's thought and work, examining the apparent contradictions and seeming enigmas with the insight and lucidity that characterize everything he writes.