Dada Surrealism Essay

The influence of surrealist art on society on the past centuries has been powerful, and artists like Salvador Dali contributed a lot to this form of art, in this research paper I piece together the career and life then by focusing on one of his remarkable artworks and trying to analyze it and how it affected the target audience of the culture and society and for all these topics which makes the main questions in my research paper I did a research to know more about them so that I can be able to link them together and understands how they affected the society.(1)

The term "grotesque" in art and literature, commonly refers to the juxtaposition of extreme contrasts such as horror and humor, or beauty and monstrosity, or desire and revulsion. One function of this juxtaposition of the rational and the irrational is to subdue or normalize the unknown, and thereby control it. The simultaneity of mutually exclusive emotional states, and the discomfort it might cause, inspires a Freudian analytic critical approach because of its focus on controlling repressed desires through therapeutic rationality. There are volumes of Freudian art criticism, which typically begin by calling attention to manifestations, in some work of art, of the darkest desires of the id. Perhaps in no field

Expressionism appeared in poetry and drama in Germany and Austria just before World War I, and was influenced by Freudian Theories of the subconscious and Nietzsche’s anti-rationalism ideas. Expressionism was mostly popular during times of social change or spiritual crisis. This kind of art was a way for people to express their emotions and feelings during a time in the world when they didn’t know any other way to express themselves.

Surrealism is a movement that built off of the burgeoning look into art, psychology, and the workings of the mind. Popularly associated with the works of Salvador Dali, Surrealist art takes imagery and ideology and creates correlation where there is none, creating new forms of art. In this essay I will look to explore the inception of the surrealist movement, including the Surrealist Manifesto, to stress the importance of these artists and their work in the 20th century and beyond. I also will look to films from our European Cinema course to express how films incorporate the influence of surrealism both intentionally and unintentionally.

1. Use the words relativity and uncertainty in a paragraph that describes the revolution in modern physics that took place in the early twentieth century.

Impactful across the globe, both Dada and Surrealism were artistic movements created in the early 20th century that were significant in redefining modern art today. The Dada movement came about in 1916 through the performance of Hugo Ball’s sound poem “Karawane” at the Cabaret Voltaire that he opened with his partner, nightclub singer Emmy Hennings, in Zurich, Switzerland. The poem made absolutely no sense, purposely, and it didn’t have to. Ball would also dress in wild costumes for his performances as seen below:

Surrealism was one of the most influential artistic movements of the 20th Century. André Breton consolidated Surrealism as a movement in the early 1920s, trying to achieve the “total liberation of the mind and of all that resembles it[1]” through innovative and varied ideas. Surrealism deeply influenced the world in the era between the two world wars and played a big role in the diffusion and adoption of psychology worldwide. Surrealism faded after World War II, but its revolutionary genius has influenced every artistic movement ever since.

During the twenty years after World War One, three major art movements appeared: dadaism, functionalism, and surrealism. Dadaism, a movement which conveyed erratic and random movements that were supposed to contradict human behavior, was a response to the anxiety of those who didn’t know how to react because of all of the strange and despairing behavior in the world. Because of these conveyed ideas, dadaism promoted outrageous and random behavior. Functionalism, a movement which tried to explore the functions and purpose of things and nature, was an attempt to find the purpose of humans in the dark times following the war. Surrealism, a movement which painted wild dreams and complex symbols, tried to spread the idea of hope from the current scary world. Through surrealism, imagination and hope was brought out through paintings that featured crazy illusions and impossible dreams. Overall, these artistic movements tried to answer and embody the general sense of anxiety felt by

Experiencing something like scarred many people, Dadaism came about as a way for some of the artists at the time to deal with what had happened. The chaotic art style of Dadaism very much paralleled the confusion and chaos everyone was experiencing coming out of one of the world's worst conflicts. Desperately wanting to move on from the pain and destruction of the First World War, these artist began to mock and challenge what was accepted as art. Dadaism used the accepted style of art from previous movements as mockery, to shake up people's perception of what art actually is. The large reversal of ideals of Dadaism, was again encountered as De Stijl began to gain popularity, where Dadaism created chaos from the previous order, De Stijl used Dadaism's mentality of change to return to an ordered

The art movement that occurred before World War II and that began as a way of protest was the Dada movement. Dadaism was born in Zurich, Switzerland – more specifically in the heart of the night club the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916, founded by leading Dada artist Hugo Ball. Dadaism was an anti-war movement that provided criticism of both capitalist and European culture, creating what was essentially nonsensical art to respond as a way of pitying society and its newfound obsession with war. An early example of artwork from the Dada movement was by one of the defining artists of the movement – Rectangles Arranged According to the Laws of Chance, a paper collage made in 1916 by Jean (Hans) Arp. Dada artists like Arp thought that pure chance itself was an unseen force, and played on the idea on the nonsense that could happen because of this chance. The nonsense and absurdity that chance could create was then comparable to the Dada artist’s views on war. The lack of control that came with the technique differed from tradition of the artist making all the decisions, yet again proving its obscurity. This specific collage of

Dadaism came into the world to confuse all the peers that look upon the work of art each person made to express themselves, this can be for emotion, reaction, love or maybe just because they want to confuse everyone. It all began in 1915, the movement instantly caught fire and spread practically everywhere, no matter where you looked there was some sort of DADA to be seen. Sometimes you didn’t even know it! The artist found inside of this essay will be: Max Ernst, Hannah Hoch and finally Johannes Baader.

Dada was an artistic and literary movement, this arose as a reaction to World War one. Many citizens believed that Dada was actually the cause of World War one, this movement likes to take the form of ‘anti-art’. Therefore, how you can claim everything is art but in reality, nothing is art. For example, take the painting ‘Fountain’ by a Dadaist painter Marcel Duchamp it is a readymade painting of an unused urinal. Which is basically implying that he rejected art and thought that we should focus on the artist 's idea more rather than it being crafted. Therefore, using a urinal and labelling it as ‘art’, get’s Duchamp’s point across that a work of art should be the artists idea instead of it being crafted. When looking at Dadaism by Tristan Tzara, there were some interesting quotes. For example, “Like everything in life, Dada is useless. Dada is without pretension, as life should be.” (Tzara, 1918). This quote intrigues me, as Tzara is stating that all art is useless and that Dada is pretension and that is how life should be. This can be used as an example of how Dadaism was inspired by

Abstract Expressionism is making its comeback within the art world. Coined as an artist movement in the 1940’s and 1950’s, at the New York School, American Abstract Expressionist began to express many ideas relevant to humanity and the world around human civilization. However, the subject matters, contributing to artists, were not meant to represent the ever-changing world around them. Rather, how the world around them affected the artist themselves. The works swayed by such worldly influences, become an important article within the artists’ pieces. Subjectively, looking inward to express the artist psyche, artists within the Abstract Expressionism movement became a part of their paintings. Making the paintings more of a representation

The surrealist artists believed the dream state and subconscious mind to be an untapped and very fertile creative fount of inspiration. The symbolism of dreams and the expressive images generated by the subconscious were far more thought provoking than the representational, logical images of the conscious mind. The surrealist artists were creating art out of what others thought to be garbled and unintelligible. They were in effect taking a concept created to heal and using it to create art instead. They were on to something with this. No matter what the medium or the style used, a bit of the self becomes visible and evident in the result. Art therapy is one of the modern descendants of this movement.

As Dali moved into his Surrealist years he became more interested in psychology and exploring his own fears and fantasies. Dali’s Surrealist period last from 1929-1940, in which years he joined the Surrealist Movement, and shortly after became a leader in this movement. In order to bring images from his “subconscious mind”, Dali began to use a method to find inspiration for his art; he would induce hallucinatory states in himself. As his work matured, and his fame grew