Comparison: Dada and Surrealism

1420 Words6 Pages
Kim Judd Literature, Arts and the Humanities Competency 112.1.2 Comparison: Dada and Surrealism Western Governor’s University September 9, 2013 Comparison: Dada and Surrealism The creative process is challenged to constantly create new ideas and techniques. Artists form communities which allows them to discuss and compare their thoughts on art and world issues. The resulting art works are like a conversation without words, each new piece a reflection on the works that came before. Art is constantly evolving by this means, thus one movement in art leads to the next, which is how Dada evolved into Surrealism. Dada, 1916-1924 War was always a part of human culture, but with the advent of the machine age, it took on a whole new atrocity. Trucks and planes made it easy for war to become global in nature. By the end of the First World War in 1917, artists were disgusted by the nationalistic mentality that they felt led to war on this scale. They had gathered in Zurich, Switzerland, one of the few areas of Europe that remained neutral during the war. Here they developed a revolutionary style of art which they called Dada. Dada encompassed many forms, including poetry, performance art, film-making and two and three dimensional visual art works. There is debate over the creator of the term Dada, but the most widely accepted is that Richard Huelsenbeck took a knife and randomly stabbed the word dada in the dictionary. The artists liked it because it meant nothing in terms of art, and was a childish term, which suited their purposes, since they rebelled against authoritarianism and the politics and nationalism that led to the war (Wolf, n.d.). The Dada revolt against authoritarianism makes it difficult to define the characteristics of the movement. Dadaists were opposed to being considered an art movement because they considered it too conventional.
Open Document