. Dada artwork had no cohesive aesthetic, in fact many Dada artists utilized the concept of collaging in their artwork (Harden). One artist in the Dada movement, Kurt Schwitters, created collages out of litter, bringing together seemingly unrelated fragments to create a whole work of art. One of his collages is shown here.Eventually, in the mid-1920s, Dadaism was absorbed by the Surrealist movement, which encompassed many of the Dadaist values and techniques. One major aim of the Surrealist movement was to explore and liberate the unconscious mind’s creative powers. Surrealists attempted to uncover this power by expressing the true functions of one’s thought process without the controlling presence of reason and outside influences (Harden). Picasso was an important painter in the Surrealist movement, and his work illustrates some of the main tendencies of this art movement. The first tendency was to use art to aggravate vision, thereby stimulating the imagination and forcing imaginative inspiration. The second technique was called “frottage,” or “rubbing.” A third technique, “grattage” or “scraping” was also utilized by Surrealist painters. The main effect the artists were striving for was to eliminate the technical, rational mind and free the spiritual, imaginative, inspirational mind within people.
"The Three Dancers" by Picasso
The Dada and Surrealist movements are very similar to modernism in literature. The writers that encompassed the modernist movement in literature also created their art in reaction to the abominations of the World Wars. In response to the horrors of millions of men dying in wars, modernist literature attempted to illuminate the absurdities of human nature, the incomprehensible fact that millions of young men died needlessly. Showing these absurdities was a large part of the modernist movement (White). In addition to showing the true dark nature of man, modernist literature, like Surrealism, attempted to uncover the “inner vision, the inner emotion, of the inner spiritual reality” which modernist authors felt was more important than external reality. Also, modernism is similar to Dadaism in that the writing is fragmented, portraying the psychological impressions of characters. This fragmentation emphasizes the importance of individual perception in the modernist movement (White).
Both Dadaism and Surrealism are reactions to the rational, realist, reason-driven art forms that precede them. Dadaists and Surrealists, in reaction to the absurdities of total, global war--in World War I and World War II--shift focus from reason and order to chaos and fragmentation. Similarly, the modernist literature movement moves from Realism and Naturalism to a disorganized way of writing. Both art movements, as well as the modern literature movement, are attempting to illustrate the internal struggle of man, revealing the complex thought processes and urging viewers and readers to shed their reasoning minds and enter into a world of inner spirituality and inner vision.
Works Cited:
Harden, Mark. "Dada and Surrealism." Mark Harden's Artchive. http://www.artchive.com/artchive/surrealism.html
White, Dr. David L. "An Introduction to Modernism and Postmodernism." Western World Literature II Webpage. http://vc.ws.edu/engl2265/unit4/Modernism/all.htm
Images
Picasso, Pablo. "The Three Dancers." http://www.tate.org.uk/adventcalendar/2007/artworks/T00729_picasso.jpg
Schwitters, Kurt. Collage. http://www.ricci-art.net/img001/229.jpg
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