Arensberg, Walter

Moffitt, John F. Marcel Duchamp s Etant donnes. how Walter Arensberg explained its alchemical iconography. Cauda Pavonis 15, no. 2 (Fall 1996) 1-13. 

Further proof for Duchamp s knowledge of this particular text is the fact that it, in a close paraphrase along with its accompanying illustration (fig. 9), had been prominently cited in Poisson s Theories et Symboles des Alchimistes, a work surely known to Marcel Duchamp. After 1915, that is once Duchamp became settled in New York and once he became fluent in English, he could have consulted yet another version of this text (also illustrated), produced by a British occultist author A. E. Waite, often cited (in his own write) by Duchamp s American patron and fellow esotericist Walter Arensberg. ... 

Finally, my essential fourth point is that this work must have been known to Marcel Duchamp, because the vivid plates from Maier s Atalanta Fugiens were certainly well known to Walter Arensberg, Duchamp s friend and artistic collaborator, and also the generous patron of the ready-mades and the Large Glass. In fact, Arensberg had reproduced, evidently at some expense, many of Maier s canonic alchemical illustrations in order to illustrate one of his own privately printed esoteric publications." ... 

Nevertheless, it is mostly in the iconographic context of the Atlanta Fugiens that Duchamp s odd, and previously completely unexplained venture into musical composition acquires important meaning. As it turns out (and as Walter Arensberg must also have known), Maier s is the only alchemical publication, illustrated or not, that is known to have contained complete musical scores, in fact one for each one of his fifty emblems. Among this other claims to fame, Maier was a pioneer Alchemist-Musician. ... 

All these telling motifs are found compactly presented in Walter Arensberg s self-published Shakespearean Mystery (1928), which 1 now earnesdy enjoin all Duchamp scholars to study. One wonders why they had not done so previously. In short, Arensberg s text represents the faithful mirror image of the cinematic scenario propelling Duchamp s Etant donnas. . . —and that alchemical text has now become a matter of public record. 

The intellectual and esoteric pursuits of Walter Arensberg have received little scholarly attention for a welcome exception to the rule, see Naumann, Cryp-... 

Cryptography and Alchemy in the Work of Marcel Duchamp and Walter Arensberg. Aries I/l (2001) 38-61. 

Marcel Duchamp s Etant dannes How Walter Arensberg Explained Its Al-... 

Walter Conrad Arensberg Poet, Patron, and Participant in the New York... 

Sawelson-Gorse, N. For Want of a Nail The Disposition of the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection. M.A. thesis, University of California, Riverside, 1987. 

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