1.1.

The Bride stripped bare by her Bachelors, even The Bride stripped bare by her Bachelors, even commonly known as The Large Glass (or simplyThe Glass) is the masterwork of Marcel Duchamp, and it is also one of the most representative and influential works of art of the 20th century. Duchamp spent several years completing his project, but the work was left unfinished in 1923. The actual execution of the work starts in 1915, but the first ideas date back to the Summer of 1912. Duchamp planned each detail of this complex work, and left a huge corpus of notes, sketches, and blueprints, documenting not only his intentions and the desired final outcome, but also the different executive techniques for each single part of the Glass. These notes were published by Duchamp himself in three main collections. The first one, edited in 1914, commonly known as The 1914 Box (Fig. 1) (because of the Kodak box containing the reproductions of the originals) contains sixteen notes and drawings; the second collection, dated 1934, is known as The Green Box (Fig. 2) (because of the green color of its binding) and contains a larger group of notes and sketches; finally, the third collection, named A l'infinitif but commonly known as The White Box, (Fig. 3) edited in 1966, contains for the most part a quantity of notes regarding mathematical speculations on the fourth dimension, directly related to theGlass and other works. Duchamp asserted that this huge apparatus of notes must be considered an integral part of the Glass. Two main parts constitute the Glass: the higher and the lower ones. The higher part is the realm of the Bride, (Fig. 4) and according to Duchamp's intention, it depicts the 2D projection of a 3D shadow of a 4D Bride. Thus, the realm of the Bride is intended to be a true 4D realm, which however cannot really be seen, since it is as depicted on a 2D support (the sheet of glass). The lower part is the realm of the Bachelors (Fig. 5) or the Bachelor apparatus (or utensil). In contrast with the Bride's realm, the Bachelor's realm is a 3D world. Thus it is imperfect in comparison with the 4D higher realm. In a note belonging to the White Box (but already issued with some minor variants in the Green Box), Duchamp wrote: Principal forms, imperfect and freed The principal forms of the bachelor apparatus or utensil are imperfect: Rectangle, circle, square, parallelepiped, symmetrical handle; demisphere.-i.e. these forms are mensurated(interrelation of their actual dimensions and relation of these dimensions to the destination of the forms in the bachelor utensil.) In the Bride the principal forms will be more or less large or small, no longer have mensurability in relation to their destination: a sphere in the Bride will have any radius (the radius given to represent it is fictitious and dotted.) Likewise, or better still, in the Pendu Femelle parabolas, hyperbolas (or volumes deriving from them) will lose all connotation of men-surated position. (1) Thus, the two parts of the Glass represent two distinct realities. The lower realm is imperfect and only tries to emulate the higher dimensionality of the Bride's realm by means of expedients and tricks (very effective, as we shall see). These tricks are largely based on perspective representations and on elementary geometric transformations. These transformations will gradually become more and more general, and, as we pass through the threshold of the horizon (the area which divides the two parts of the Glass) from the lower half into the 4D realm of the Bride (following the pathway described by Duchamp), we finally reach a world where, abandoning any metrical trait of the objects, only more general geometrical transformations take place: the topological ones. The subject is already thoroughly discussed by scholars (2). Perspective is not only the drawing system used by Duchamp to compose the lower part of the work, but also (and better) perspective in itself is one of the most important themes of the Glass. Indeed, we have quite explicit statements by Duchamp, such as the following, given during a famous interview with Pierre Cabanne, that supports this contention:

Duchamp: [] In addition, perspective was very important. The Large Glass constitutes a rehabilitation of perspective, which had then been completely ignored and disparaged. For me, perspective became absolutely scientific. Cabanne: It was no longer realistic perspective. Duchamp: No. Its a mathematical, scientific perspective. Cabanne: Was it based on calculations? Duchamp: Yes, and on dimensions. These were the important elements. [] (3)

Now we can understand why Duchamp chose just the reproduction of the Glider as the cover of the White Box: remember indeed that the notes of this collection are mainly focused on the fourth dimension and its properties. In short, with the Glider Duchamp suggests a rotary motion which allows the observer to look at two different Chariots, the one being the specular reversed image of the other, with the involvement of the fourth dimension concept we presented above.

Now, consider that the same thing can actually be done with the whole Glass, by simply walking around it. Once again the transparency of the glass permits the observer to look at two different Bachelor apparatuses, specular one to another, with analogous involvement of the fourth dimension concept. The motion of the observer around the Glass corresponds to the rotary motion of the Glider about its hinge as the observer stands still.