Distortion, however brilliantly conceived, is a kind of primordiality manqué in the art of Picasso and Duchamp. Genuine primordiality lies beyond distortion, in an altogether different psychoartistic space – that of the geometry of Mondrian and Malevich. Distortion no doubt makes an object seem enigmatic, and thus possibly primordial in import, but this effect wears thin once it is discovered that distortion is a dead end. The distorted objects of Picasso and Duchamp are Delphic riddles that can never be conclusively deciphered, however much the outline of an ordinary object can be recognized behind the veil of distortion. Indeed, Picasso and Duchamp seem mischievously to cultivate the unintelligibility of distortion, as if to make the object more perceptually exciting than it ordinarily is. But this does not make it primordial; the ordinary object is neither perceptually nor cognitively fundamental, no matter how visually intriguing.