T'um
Executed in 1918, T'um is Marcel Duchamp’s last painting on canvas. text from Yale University art gallery - “Tu m’ was commissioned by artist, collector, and educator Katherine Dreier to be hung over a bookcase in her library, hence the unusual length and frieze-like shape of the work… The title lends a sarcastic tone to the work, for the words, perhaps short for the French “tu m’emmerdes” (you annoy me) or “tu m’ennuies” (you bore me), seem to express his attitude toward painting as he was casting it aside”. T’um is Duchamp’s critique of painting but its elements are presented in a linear manner, using images as words. The format of the painting is akin to Monet’s Nympheas in the Jeu de Pomme in Paris, but unlike Monet, Duchamp requires one to “read” the picture from left to right ,as one would read the library books stored below. It does not permit the act of holistic, delocalised perception with which we see the world (and Monet’s Nympheas) and subsequen