Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q.
Duchamp's work fell into an art movement that arose in Europe during World War I, known as Dada. This period, a part of the Modern World Art of 1800-1945, came into being as a reaction against the unprecedented carnage of world war. The artists associated with Dada felt that any civilization that could tolerate such brutality must be swept away, and all of its institutions, including traditional art, along with it. Dada, therefore, was anti-everything. Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. is representative of Dada's art. He selected the one painting that symbolized art for the Western world, and he gleefully drew a mustache and goatee on a reproduction of Mona Lisa. He also penciled in the letters at the bottom, which, when pronounced the French way, make a vulgar pun suggestive of nymphomania. This work by Duchamp is an ultimate portrayal of the unsettled feelings toward religion in the ninteenth and twentieth centuries. Men and women were struggling to understand religion and where the scriptures came from. Their rebellion against tradition and their uncertainty toward religion are clearly represented in this twentieth century mockery of Mona Lisa.
This image from Gilbert, Living With Art.