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A painting that doesn't shock isn't worth painting.
Marcel Duchamp
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Art should provoke thought and evoke strong emotions.

Marcel Duchamp emphasizes the idea that true art must challenge viewers and stir a reaction. If a painting doesn't elicit strong feelings or provoke critical thinking, it fails to fulfill its purpose in stimulating dialogue and reflection about society and the human experience.

Themes

ArtShockProvocationEmotionExpression

In practice

Example use cases

In an art class, to inspire students, one might say, 'Remember, a painting that doesn't shock isn't worth painting.'

More from Marcel Duchamp

An abstract painting need in 50 years by no means look "abstract" any longer.
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All this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess.
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I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.
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I never finished the 'Large Glass' because, after working on it for eight years, I probably got interested in something else; also, I was tired. It may be that, subconsciously, I never intended to finish it because the word 'finish' implies an acceptance of traditional methods and all the paraphernalia that accompany them.
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It's a product of two poles - there's the pole of the one who makes the work, and the pole of the one who looks at it. I give the latter as much importance as the one who makes it.
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I became a librarian at the Sainte-Genevieve Library in Paris. I made this gesture to rid myself of a certain milieu, a certain attitude, to have a clean conscience, but also to make a living. I was twenty-five. I had been told that one must make a living, and I believed it.
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Quote by Marcel Duchamp | QuoteProject