Nude descending a staircase (Patreon)

The artist Marcel Duchamp painted at least two Cubism-inspired paintings of overlapping nude human figures walking down a staircase in a manner in which both the progression and each step taken could be seen at once. These paintings are named. Nude Descending a Staircase Number 1 and Number 2.

One of these versions, Number 2, was displayed in a well known gallery in 1912 and when the viewing public figured out it was a nude woman, shock abounded and the display was removed.

Nude Descending a Staircase; © X. J. Kennedy

Toe upon toe, a snowing flesh,
A gold of lemon, root and rind,
She sifts in sunlight down the stairs
With nothing on. Nor on her mind.
.
We spy beneath the banister
A constant thresh of thigh on thigh--
Her lips imprint the swinging air
That parts to let her parts go by.
.
One-woman waterall, she wears
Her slow descent like a long cape
And pausing, on the final stair
Collects her motions into shape.

Photographic collaboration with Jamie Keys