Marcel Duchamp, a fountain of misogyny

A cold examination, without being a forensic expert, clearly indicates the misogyny of Marcel Duchamp. He was, of course, a man of his time – the late 19th/early 20th century – but his disrespect for women, which more moderate critics might call irreverence, was recurring in his art. He shared this attitude with his friend Salvador Dalí, and both were known in Paris for their crude, sometimes virulent humor.

Étant donnés, an artwork by Marcel Duchamp created between 1946 and 1966, consists of a wooden door pierced with two holes through which the viewer observes a mysterious scene. Behind the door lies a lifeless, naked female body, sprawled across branches, holding an illuminated gas lamp. The piece forces the viewer into the position of a voyeur to explore its details. Behind its apparent conceptual complexity, Duchamp perpetuates a dehumanizing view of women, reducing them to mere objects of passive, voyeuristic contemplation. The female figure, entirely nude, is stripped of any identity, autonomy, even her face. She is transformed into an inert object made of leather and other materials, devoid of any subjectivity. Lying on branches, holding a gas lamp like a relic, she is presented in a posture evoking both submission and vulnerability. This exposed, frozen body becomes the embodiment of the traditional male fantasy: the mute, passive woman, existing solely to be looked at.

Duchamp goes further by actively involving the viewer in this objectification dynamic, as the piece can only be seen through two small holes in a door, forcing the onlooker into the explicit role of a voyeur. By placing the viewer in this position, Duchamp legitimizes and naturalizes a visual dominance over the woman. Rather than questioning this relationship, the approach strengthens it, making it indispensable to the very experience of the artwork. This imposed voyeurism places the viewer in a position of absolute control—looking, analyzing, judging—while the woman remains silent and exposed, unable to respond. Far from critiquing patriarchal dynamics, this staging reproduces them with chilling cynicism. The very construction of Étant donnés reveals an implicit contempt for women as human beings, as Duchamp sees only malleable material. The female body becomes a mere vehicle for his artistic experiments, with no regard for the ethical or cultural implications of such representation.

Étant donnés cannot be separated from the history of patriarchal art, where the female body has consistently been used as a tool of power upon which men project their fantasies and obsessions. Despite his reputation as a subversive, Duchamp follows this lineage, creating a work that fetishizes the woman, deliberately ignoring the question of consent. Étant donnés is a glorification of the male gaze, disguised under an appearance of intellectualism, which traps the woman in a fixed, passive role and reinforces the oppressive dynamics shaping both art and society.

Étant donnés pays homage to Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde (1866).

Both works raise questions about male dominance in art.

But if L’Origine du Monde influenced Étant donnés, could it also have influenced Fountain?

In this regard, an analysis of Duchamp’s signature “R. Mutt” sheds light on the connection.

Let’s talk about Katherine Dreier, theosophist, wealthy heiress, influential figure in the New York art scene, and generous patron of Duchamp. Dreier was a member of the selection committee for the 1917 exhibition organized by the Society of Independent Artists that rejected Fountain. Dreier, who voted against the piece, was a feminist, a prominent suffragette, and head of the German-American Committee of the Woman Suffrage Party—the exact type of woman Duchamp had caricatured in the past.

The word “mutter” in German means “mother”. But “urmutter” goes further, denoting the “original mother”, the “ancestral mother of the people”. Thus, “urmutter” directly recalls Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde, and mocks Dreier, as it was written retrospectively.

Guillaume Apollinaire described Fountain as the “Buddha of the Bathroom.” Often called “the most influential artwork of the 20th century”, Fountain is, in essence, a giant porcelain vagina— a testament to the disdain for women that marked Duchamp’s career.

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