Grand Cheval
1914 - 1931
Raymond Duchamp-Villon
Do you recognize the typical forms of a horse? The hoof, the curved neck, the particular muzzle? The checkered shapes of the hoof and head represent the whole horse. But certain details are more like machine parts.
Details
- Plan number: V04
- Zone: Entanglement
- Title: Grand Cheval (Large Horse)
- Creator: Raymond Duchamp-Villon , Frères Susse
- Date: 1914 - 1931
- Material: bronze
- Acquisition: purchase, 1955
- Object number: MID.B.097
For Raymond Duchamp-Villon, this sculpture was an ode to technological progress, with the horse as an ancient, reliable machine. He has depicted the horse as a “machine avant-la-lettre.” The sculpture glorifies speed and horsepower. Not coincidentally, the artist was also a passionate equestrian.
This horse is at once animal and (man-made) machine: it is a hybrid of machine parts and animal features. We see the long, elegant curves of the horse’s neck, the suggestion of a head, the crease of an ear, perhaps. These are fused with machine parts that could be described as rods, pistons, gears, and valves.
French sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon was the brother of Marcel Duchamp and Jacques Villon. In 1910, he started his own Cubist movement. Later, he joined Futurism, characterized by an unconditional belief in the future. At the outbreak of WWI, he joined the army as an auxiliary medic. He died young and did not live to see the end of the war.
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