Framed Nude Descending A Staircase, No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp

Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp is a landmark of modern art that fuses Cubism with Futurism to capture motion in a single image. Rather than depicting a traditional figure, Duchamp portrays the act of movement itself through overlapping, abstracted forms resembling a mechanical figure in sequential motion. The earthy browns and ochres, combined with the angular, fragmented shapes, evoke both the rhythm of a machine and the fluidity of a body in motion. First exhibited in Paris and later at the 1913 Armory Show in New York—where it scandalized and fascinated audiences—it challenged conventional ideas of the nude and of painting, becoming an icon of early 20th-century avant-garde experimentation.