Broken and Restored Multiplication

Like many Dada works, those by Suzanne Duchamp weave painting, collage, and language together in complex ways. Broken and Restored Multiplication is filled with visual and verbal metaphors of disorder and breakage: at the center, a schematic Eiffel Tower is turned upside down; just below it, a modern cityscape is reflected in its mirror image. The phrases that run up and down along the surface of the picture further the idea of order upended: "The mirror would shatter, the scaffolding would totter, the balloons would fly away, the stars would dim, etc." Such images and words seemed fitting for the artists who embraced Dada, a cultural movement that emerged in response to World War I.