Picabia's ‘Mechanical Expression’ and the Demise of the Object

Abstract

In 1913 Francis Picabia created a curious watercolor entitled Mechanical Expression Seen Through Our Own Mechanical Expression. Beginning with a concrete object (the dancer Stacia Napierkowska), he selected a symbolic object in the form of a radiometer which he intended as a representation of her according to functional analogy. Using an objective representation of this object, he added a symbolic dimension that referred back to his original subject. The labels, the sinuous tube, and the dangling stopper subvert the work's realistic premises and comment on the symbolic drama. The title adds yet another dimension by focusing the viewer's attention on the artist's method and by providing a theoretical context. An essay in double abstraction, Mechanical Expression stems from Marius de Zayas' experiments with abstract caricature and prefigures Picabia's mechanomorphic phase which began two years later.