The Violin of lngres, 1924
Gelatin silver print 29.6 x 23 cm
(11-5/8 x 9 in.)
86.XM.626.10

The goal of many experimental artists of the 1920s was to fully integrate the figurative and the abstract into a single seamlessly joined work of art that had vigorous content and appealed first to the sense of sight and second to reason. The Violin of lngres (Le Violon d'Ingres) shows Alice Prin, who was better known as Kiki of Montparnasse, from the back, posed to resemble the model in The Turkish Bath of 1859-63 by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Besides setting up the obvious visual pun, Man Ray was also making a reference to Ingres's hobby of playing the violin and to Marcel Duchamp's love of seeing one thing in the shape of another. Man Ray was also making an irreverent comment upon art that has been sanctified by museums and commenting sardonically upon cherished notions of human sexuality.
(MAN RAY related to-->> 175, Japanese)

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