#11 DADA AND SURREALISM

DADA AND SURREALISM

We sometimes think of terrorism as something that belongs to the twenty-first century, but nearly a hundred years ago, a terrorist organization named The Black Hand in Serbia helped to engineer the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while he was on a visit to Sarajevo. This assassination by a Bosnian student named Gavrilo Princip began the most devastating war that had ever occurred — The Great War, or World War I as it was later known.

OBJECTIVES

Discuss how World War I helped to create Dada.
Identify Dada artists.
Differentiate between Dada and Surrealism.
Describe the work of Dali and Magritte.

VOCABULARY

Europe before WWI

THE GREAT WAR AND ITS EFFECT ON ART

World War I was the first war to take place on a global level. It took place on the sea, in the air, in Europe, and in the European colonies. Eventually, even the United States became involved. This war helped ignite the Russian Revolution and launched America as a world power. The unresolved issues of the war also led to World War II twenty years later and to the Cold War after that.

The war began in the Balkans approximately a hundred years ago as Serbia chafed under the domination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The Empire was ruled by Emperor Franz Joseph, who had been in charge for sixty-six years. His was a repressive, undemocratic rule over a hodgepodge of ethnicities. His nephew, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was not so resistant to change and had plans to institute political reforms when he ascended to the throne. But he never had the chance. After his assassination, the "shot heard round the world," Europe was plunged into a devastating war. New technology meant that war was even more horrible than ever. Bombs, gas shells, waves of bullets from machine guns, trench warfare in which the trenches were filled with blood and filth — this is what war meant in the twentieth century.

For the Europeans who had come to believe in progress and civilization, the Great War was as psychologically destructive as it had been physically. Although the Futurists may have welcomed the war, other artists, notably the Dadaists, were horrified by it.

DADAISM, OR DADA

The word Dada was chosen at random by a group of artists who felt that nothing made sense anymore. It literally means both "hobby horse" and "father"; they responded to the idea that it was nonsensical. Founded in neutral Switzerland, the movement was a reaction to the horrors of World War I. The movement spread across Europe and into America.

Although they held no unifying vision or theories of art, Dadaists were brought together by a belief in nihilism. Reacting against the traditional expectations of artists and writers, they believed that reason and logic had created the world war; therefore, they turned to art that was irrational and intuitive.

The goal of the Dadaists was to shock for the sake of shocking. Artists working in this movement felt that reason and logic were doing more harm than good, and believed that by being purposefully incomprehensible, they were making a statement to the masses. Only by shocking their audience could they wake them from their ill conceived ways.

By the 1920s, the Dada movement had run out of steam, and many of the artists turned to Surrealism.

Dada Artists

Jean (Hans) Arp (1887-1966)

Jean Arp was a French sculptor, painter, and poet, who also went by the name Hans. He painted in Switzerland for several years and then joined the expressionist group Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) in Munich. In 1916, Arp helped found the revolutionary Dadaist school of artists in Zürich.

Arp moved to Paris in 1924. He started to associate with the artists from the surrealist movement and began to create painted wooden bas-reliefs and humorous constructions he made with cut cardboard and scraps of torn paper which embraced the idea of chance. He later began producing modernist sculptures.

Take a virtual trip to MOMA and read about Jean (Hans) Arp and Dada.

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)

Marcel Duchamp, a Dada artist, created his masterpiece, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 in 1912. This masterwork, illustrating movement without interruption using cubist figures, had great influence on what would become an avant-garde movement. Duchamp was also influential as a sculptor, producing mobiles and ready-made art. Duchamp’s works also had influence in the development of Surrealism, Dada and pop art.

Read the article at the BBC news website about Marcel Duchamp's famous "ready-made" art, Fountain, which is considered one of the most important and influential works of the twentieth century.

SURREALISM

Salvador Dalí's Palladio's corridor of dramatic surprise

Surrealism grew out of Dada, and was one of the leading influences of the twentieth century. The Surrealists also tapped the unconscious mind as the creative force in their works. But they were different than the Dadaists in that their creations maintained an orderly structure. The psychic unconscious of the surrealists were channeled in a more serious way. ." It was established by the writer Andre Breton, a French doctor who had served in World War I.

The Surrealists studied psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Both of these men explored the idea of the subconscious mind. The Surrealists rejected logic and reason, and their style incorporated visual imagery from the subconscious mind.

The most well-known Surrealists include:

German Max Ernst
Frenchman Jean Arp
American painter and photographer Man Ray
Spanish artist and illustrator Salvador Dalí
Belgian artist René Magritte

Although Salvador Dali, a Spanish Surrealist, is often grouped with the Surrealist movement, his work was often criticized for its appeal to the commercial marketplace. Displaying a complex variety of technique, Dali’s work is said to be a photographic capture of his dreams.

Surrealist Artists

René Magritte (1898-1967)

René Magritte is noted for the extraordinary juxtaposition of ordinary objects in his paintings. This juxtaposition is frequently termed Magic Realism.

René Magritte, a Belgian Surrealist, created magical realism with his technique of juxtaposing ordinary objects.

View another of Magritte's pieces, Elective Affinities

Salvador Dalí (1904-89)

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí was a Spanish Surrealist painter and writer.

His paintings from this period depict dream imagery and daily objects in unexpected forms, such as the limp watches in The Persistence of Memory. Dalí's paintings are characterized by meticulous draftsmanship and realistic detail, with intense colors heightened by transparent glazes. In addition, Dali was influenced by the post-impressionist Paul Cezanne as can be seen by his painting, Cadaques.

The Influence of Peggy Guggenheim

Artists cannot survive (sometimes literally) without the help of patronage — or in this case, "matronage" — Peggy Guggenheim was a wealthy New York heiress with a love for art and for artists. She traveled to Paris in 1920 and discovered avant-garde art. She opened a gallery in New York called Art of This Century that displayed new works from European artists.

Guggenheim even helped Max Ernst escape Nazi Germany when he was arrested by the Gestapo. They later married briefly. Her art collection is now on display in a palace in Venice, Italy.

Go to the Peggy Guggenheim collection and look at Max Ernst's Surrealist picture, The Kiss .

LET'S REVIEW!

In this lesson, you have covered the following concepts:

Many artists rejected reason and logic after World War I
The Dadaists created art that was random and illogical
They were essentially an anti-art movement
Like the Dadaists, the Surrealists rejected logic
Peggy Guggenheim was one of the first collectors to recognize the importance of Surrealism

Complete the following quiz before moving on.

#11 DADA AND SURREALISM QUIZ

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