The Burnt Orange Heresy

For an artist, the lack of clutter was most unusual. Painters, as a "class", are a messy lot. They collect things. An old board with concentric swirls, a rock with an intriguing shape, jumbles of wire, seashells, any and all kinds of things that have, to them, interesting shapes or colors. A chunk of wood, for example, may gather a heavy patina of dust for years before a sculptor finally detects the shape within the object and liberates it into a piece of sculpture.

Painters are even messier, in most instances, than sculptors. They stick drawings up here and there. Pads with sketches are scattered about haphazardly, and they clutter their quarters with all kinds of props and worthless junk. Things are needed for visual stimulation and possible ideas. This clutter is not confined to their studios either. It generally spills over into their everyday habitat, including the kitchen and bathroom.

And a Surrealist, like Debierue, dealing in the juxtaposition of the unlikely, would ordinarily require a great many unrelated objects in his home-studio to nudge his subconscious. But then, Debierue was an anomaly among painters. My experience with the habits of other painters could hardly apply to him. Besides, I had not, as yet, seen the inside of his studio. . . .

"As you see, I am an orderly, clean old man. Always it was so, even as a young man. So it may be, after all, that I am not the Surrealist. Is it not so?" The grooved amusement lines crowding his blue eyes deepened as he smiled.

"It's a relative term," I said politely. "A convenient label. 'Superrealist' or 'Subrealist' would both have served as well. The term 'Dada' itself was just a catchall word at first, but the motto 'Dada hurts,' when it was truly followed or lived up to in plastic expression, was quite important to me. In fact it stifi is, but I've always considered 'Surrealism' as a misnomer."

"Debierue does not like any label. Debierue is Debierue. Marcel Duchamp I admired very much, and he too did not like labels. Do you remember what Duchamp did when a young writer asked him for permission to write his biography?"

"No, sir."

"When Duchamp was asked for the quite personal information about himself he said nothing. He did not have to think. He emptied all of the drawers from his desk onto the floor and walked out of the room."

"An existential act." The story was one I hadn't heard.

"Another label, M. Figueras?" He clucked his tongue. "So now on the floor are odds and ends, little things saved in the desk for many years for no good reason. Snapshots, little notes one receives or makes for himself. Old letters from friends, enemies, ladies. And, what is it?'-the doodles, little pencil squigglings. And pretty canceled stamps, saved because they are exotic perhaps. Stubs from the theater." He shrugged.

"It sounds like my desk in New York."

"But this was the Duchamp biography. The clever young man picked up everything from the floor and went away. He pasted all of the objects in a big book, entitled it The Biography of Marcel Duchamp and sold it for a large sum of dollars to a rich Texas Jew."

"It's funny! never heard about it. I thought I knew practically everything about Duchamp there was to know . . ."

"And so did the young man who 'wrote' the biography about Duchamp out of odds and ends from a desk."

"Nevertheless," I said, "I'd like to take a look at that book. Every scrap of information about Duchamp is important because it helps us to understand his art."

The artist shrugged. "There is no such book. The story is apochryphal-I made it up myself and spread it to a few friends many years ago to see what would happen. And because it is something Duchamp might do, many believed it as you were prepared to do. The chance debris of an artist's life does not explain the man, nor does it explain the artist's work. The true artist's vision comes from here." He tapped his forehead.

Debierue's face was expressionless now, and I was unable to tell whether he was serious, teasing me, or getting hostile. He turned to Berenice and smiled. He took her right hand in both of his and spoke in English.

"If a man had a wife and children, perhaps a short biography to leave his family, a record for them to remember him. . . but old Debierue has no wife, children, no relatives now living, to want such a book. The true artist, my dear, is too responsible to marry and have a family."

"Too responsible to fall in love?" Berenice asked softly.

"No. Love he must have."

I cleared my throat. "The entire world is the artist's family, M. Debierue. There are thousands of art lovers all over the world who would like to read your biography. Those who write to you, I know, and those who-"

He patted my arm. "Let us be the friends. It is not friendly to talk about nothing with such seriousness on your face. It is getting late, and you will both stay to dinner with me, please."