A groundbreaking reading of Duchamp's work as informed by Asian “esoterism, ” energetic spiritual practices identifying creative energy with the erotic impulse.
Considered by many to be the most important artist of the twentieth century, the object of intensive critical scrutiny and extensive theorizing, Marcel Duchamp remains an enigma. He may be the most intellectual artist of all time; and yet, toward the end of his life, he said, “If you wish, my art would be that of living: each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual or cerebral.” In Marcel Duchamp and the Art of Life, Jacquelynn Baas offers a groundbreaking new reading of Duchamp, arguing in particular that his work may have been informed by Asian “esoterism, ” energetic spiritual practices that identify creative energy with the erotic impulse. 
Duchamp drew on a wide range of sources for his art, from science and mathematics to alchemy. Largely overlooked, until now, have been Asian spiritual practices, including Indo-Tibetan tantra. Baas presents evidence that Duchamp's version of artistic realization was grounded in a western interpretation of Asian mind training and body energetics designed to transform erotic energy into mental and spiritual liberation. She offers close readings of many Duchamp works, beginning and ending with his final work, the mysterious, shockingly explicit Étant donnés: 1° la chute d'eau 2° le gaz d'éclairage, (Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas).
Generously illustrated, with many images in color, Marcel Duchamp and the Art of Life speculates that Duchamp viewed art making as part of an esoteric continuum grounded in Eros. It asks us to unlearn what we think we know, about both art and life, in order to be open to experience.

Marcel Duchamp and the Art of Life (Mit Press)

Arts & Photography

Baas, Jacquelynn

History & Criticism

The MIT Press

The prolific talents of painter Joan Brown (1938-1990) inform every page of this shining testament to a singular artist. For Brown, art was a means of self-revelation and self-investigation, a fact made abundantly clear by the autobiographical nature of her work. In the first book to fully explore Joan Brown's artistic career, Karen Tsujimoto provides an overview of Brown's life from her San Francisco childhood to her years as a mature artist and teacher. Jacquelynn Baas focuses on Brown's use of universal and personal symbolism by analyzing one of her most celebrated paintings, The Bride. Both authors make extensive use of interviews that let Joan Brown speak for herself about art and the creative process. Brown greatly admired her teacher, Elmer Bischoff, and his style of Bay Area figuration. But she also was attracted to the freedom found in abstraction as expressed by de Kooning, Picasso, and Matisse. Finding her own way, she used images of family, animals, water, romantic relationships, and self-portraits to explore the complexities of human nature, often hiding her rigorous self-reflection beneath a facade of painterly spontaneity. She had a lifelong interest in philosophy and religion, and much of her later work reflected universal themes and symbols. Serious, full of energy and passion, Brown approached both her personal and her professional life with characteristic intensity. Married four times, she was a devoted mother, a competitive swimmer, and an outspoken opponent of the art world's growing commercialism. Many issues she dealt with early in her career anticipated similar concerns raised by the women's movement in the 1970s. In 1990, while installing an obelisk she had created for the Eternal Heritage Museum in Puttaparthi, India, Joan Brown was instantly killed when a concrete turret fell on her. What lives on in her work is her fascination with the human condition and a determination to record its essence as reflected in her own life.

The Art of Joan Brown

Tsujimoto, Karen

University of California Press

Smile of the Buddha explores the influences of Asian world-views and particularly Buddhism on the art of Europe and America in the modern era. In an informative and perceptive introduction and essays on twenty well-known artists, Jacquelynn Baas analyzes how the teachings of the Buddha offered alternatives to Western intellectual conceptions of art and traces the various ways this inspiration materialized in artworks. The influence of Buddhism on art from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to the present has been greater than historians and critics generally recognize, Baas claims. Considering essential questions about the relationship of art and life, this timely and beautifully illustrated book expands our perspective on how spirituality and creativity inspire and inform one another. Baas's insights and the images she presents give the reader a new understanding and appreciation of a diverse array of Western artworks.

Smile of the Buddha: Eastern Philosophy and Western Art from Monet to Today

History

The artistic revival of the woodcut in France 1850-1900

University of Michigan Museum of Art

Shows highlights from the paintings, prints, sculpture and photographs of the Hood Museum and includes ancient, Asian, American, European, and modern art

Treasures of the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College

Hudson Hills Pr

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baas, Jacquelynn. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Baas, Jacquelynn