The 1910s "The Treasures of Satan" trail

leading from

Yvonne and Magdeleine torn in tatters (1911) Marcel Duchamp

a) "Yvonne and Magdeleine torn in tatters" by Marcel Duchamp (1911)
Here I am attempting to compare Delville's "Treasures of Satan" with Marcel Duchamp's "Yvonne and Magdeleine torn in tatters" as if to say that one resulted in the other and Duchamp's painting is fairly difficult to describe.

Perhaps it could be said that the composition unconsciously became like the Treasures of Satan in small ways, and Otto Dix would pick up on this on his later painting "The Skat Players - Card Playing War Invalids" later in 1920

Duchamp told Pierre Cabanne (as written in Dialogues With Marcel Duchamp) that "the tearing" in his composition's name "was fundamentally an interpretation of Cubist dislocation" while not actually being Cubist.

The Satan's torso has transformed into the central woman's face with the eye staring out, the sheet of cloth before the Satan becomes the left side of the face's long hair, and the tentacle curling around the man's back has transformed into the right tentacle. Has his head become her eye or has the cloth wrapped around his arm become his eye.

The idea of a central eye staring out would become a reoccurring idea amongst a good number of these paintings supposedly in this Treasures of Satan family.





The longer tentacle has transformed into the profile of the larger face with a grey nose facing towards the right and the kink in the end of the tentacle becomes the nose of a woman's face looking towards the left. Perhaps that same kink also transforms into the mouth area of the large fragmented face with the grey nose, but as if it has been distorted through glass

The tree like water weed or coral on the right becomes the right head's hair.

On the far upper left, there appears to be a smaller structure made up from under water plants that almost has a pinnacle to it and around that area on the other side there is an upward sharp point in the masses of brown organic shapes on the far left which possibly would be the back of the head of the face on the far right.

Perhaps the tips of the tentacles along with the cloth curving downwards before the leaping Satan become the profile of another face appears to the left of the central face.





b) The Void by Naul Nash (1918)

Looking for the Satan's tentacles in The Void,  Paul Nash's The Void falls into the pattern of looking as if it's based on Treasures of Satan, with the satanic figure represented by the clouds in the distance, his tale becomes the trench to the far right.

Looking for the Satan's limbs in The Void:
There might be the desire to compare the top of the hill in the background in the centre with the back of the wrist of the satanic figure's hand held out before him, his leg on the right to the slop going down to the right from there, but not much can be said about his leg stretching to the left other than to compare it to the shadow of the back of the ground behind the cannons.

Comparing the naked bodies to areas in The Void:
Because the actual painting is wider than Treasures of Satan, one might even compare the structure of the road running up along the left to the path like nature of the naked bodies but with their details transformed into the area of ground further to the right becoming the field with war wreckage and water filled pits, their arms transform into such things as the broken walk ways and the cannon wheels.




So, if we started copying and pasting and stretching bits of Treasures of Satan to show the sort of structure that could be easily developed into The Void, we have this...



c) The Menin Road by Paul Nash (1918)

The idea comes across to me that Treasures of Satan inspired him when Paul Nash painted this work, and in small ways it would have entered into his work generally, perhaps often unnoticeably, but it shows in The Void that turned out to be painted the same year as this. 







Perhaps one might want to assume that some of the lower human bodies have been transformed into pools of water.

Corals on the left have been transformed into blocks and section of ribbed circular materials.

Other things might be considered, but establishing a decent flow of thoughts about this might take some time.










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