Dadaism - what is it? Representatives of Dadaism in painting

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In the modern world, people pay special attention to their culture and mental development. It is no longer enough to be an expert in only one area to keep an interesting conversation in an intelligent company.

In order to keep up with life and not lose face at the most crucial moment, we must constantly develop and learn something new.

Everyone who considers himself an educated person with a rich outlook should understand the minimum basics of art and painting, because this is one of the most common topics when talking to unfamiliar people in an intelligent society.

There are a huge number of styles invented at different times by artists and writers, from stiff classicism to eccentric and anarchic underground.

Today we will talk about one of the most discussed styles of the twentieth century - Dadaism.

Dada: Definition

As you understand, the beginning of the twentieth century amazed the people with its cruelty and inhumanity. The whole world has become a victim of hostilities unleashed due to selfishness, illogicality and even manic actions of some political figures. The discontent of the masses grew. All this accumulated tension and misunderstanding of what was happening spilled out through the directions of creativity of that time.

Dadaism itself is an avant-garde art direction that denies any laws of color combinations and excludes clear lines and geometric shapes. In 1916, the artists, stunned by the horrors of war, opened to the people this trend in literature, music, painting, theater and cinema. With this kind of kitsch, they tried to express their contempt for power, its cynicism, lack of humanity, logic, and the cruelty that, in their opinion, became the cause of discord between countries.

A follower of such a direction as Dadaism is surrealism, which also denies everything aesthetic.

Disappointment, a sense of the meaninglessness of existence, anger and disbelief in a happy future - these are the reasons for the emergence of this direction, which denies all the laws of beauty.

Dadaism is a style that openly protested against military actions and the bourgeoisie, striving for anarchy and communism.

Where did the name come from

It was necessary to find the appropriate word to name such a movement, which identified the complete meaninglessness and incomprehensibility of what the authorities were doing in those years.

Tristan Tzana, trying to find a suitable name for a newly invented style, was flipping through a dictionary of Negro tribal languages and came across the word "dada".

So, Dadaism is translated from the language of the African tribe Kru - the tail of a cow. Later it turned out that in some regions of Italy sothey call the nurse and the mother, and also "dada" is very reminiscent of the babbling of a baby.

The artist thought there was no better name for this avant-garde trend.

Founders of the movement

Dadaism simultaneously originated in Zurich and New York, in each country independently of each other. The founders of this anti-aesthetic trend include: the poet and playwright from Germany Hugo Ball, Richard Huelsenbeck, Samuel Rosenstock - a French and Romanian poet (a Jew by nationality), better known to the general public under the pseudonym Tristan Tzara, a German and French poet, sculptor and artist Arp Jean, the German-French artist Max Ernest and Janko Marcel, an Israeli and Romanian artist. All these famous personalities are bright representatives of Dadaism in painting, literature, music and other areas of art.

The meeting place chosen by this group of creative people was the Cabaret Voltaire. The almanac published by the Dadaists of that time bears the name of this institution.

Despite the fact that the above-mentioned personalities are considered the founders of the current we are discussing, several decades before its foundation, the world-famous "school of fuism", created by the artist Arthur Sapek and the writer Alphonse Ale at the end of the nineteenth century, put forward artistic and musical works that carry all the main positions of this direction.

Most of the Bohemia, working in the style of Dadaism, settled in France and Germany, where this trend gradually merged with avant-garde and surrealism.

Dadaism in Russia became famous thanks to the well-known Moscow and Rostov literary group Nichevka, but by the end of its existence.

By 1923, this direction was replaced by newer and corresponding to the popular mood currents. Dadaists retrained as expressionists and surrealists.

Dadaism in painting

Collage is considered the most popular type of creativity in this style: many artists, taking some suitable material as a basis, glued it with various pieces of multi-colored paper, fabric and other catchy materials.

Dadaism in painting is futuristic and constructivist in nature, where preference is given to artificially created mechanized objects rather than a person and his soul.

Fans of this trend with their creativity are trying to destroy the traditional language of culture in the broadest sense of the word.

All representatives of Dadaism in painting with their works completely deny everything logical, destroy the spiritual and social canons that have developed over the centuries, instead putting forward for show meaningless, ridiculous in their arealism and stupidity pictures and collages. However, they are a great success, as they are fully consistent with the state of the public.

There is no direction more closely associated with literature than Dadaism in painting. Artists of that time often turned out to be part-time poets, which was most strikingly reflected in their works in these two areas (R. Hausman, G. Arp, K. Schwieters, F. Picabia).

As mentioned above, a special impact on futurethe school of "fumism" provided the Dadaists.

Representatives of Dadaism learned a lot from the works of the artist Marcel Duchamp, the works were avant-garde in the beginning of his work.

This painter in his works gave the main role to everyday, unremarkable objects, which to some extent is also Dadaism. Examples of his work are Chocolate Crusher No. 2 and Bicycle Wheel.

With his work, the artist, like all Dadaists, ridicules the highest goal and the most important task in art, calling for artistic freedom and madness.

Dadaism in the sounds of music and poetry

Besides paintings, the Dadaists captured other areas of creativity. They managed to combine paintings, loud music, reading literature and dancing in one exhibition.

Kurt Schwieters is a Dadaist turned inventor of sound poetry, which he calls "good poetry". In this form of literary presentation, a story is intertwined with music, for example, a battle is shown with noise in a poem. Such poems most often carried a meaning with an anti-war and anti-bourgeois background. Poets ridiculed the authorities and established moral principles in them.

Also often, the public was offered poetic works that were not told in words and phrases, but consisted of a set of sounds, letters, screams, as well as loud music.

Dadaism is also music brought by such famous personalities as: Francis Piquebia, Georges Ribemont-Desay, Erwin Schulhoff, Hans Heusser, Albert Sevino, Eric Satie. Their compositions were wornnoise nature and showed the animal essence of society, which was not always clear to a simple layman.

Dances in this direction also did not differ in a set of smooth and connected movements, and the costumes of the dancers were sewn in the style of zigzag cubism, which did not add aesthetics to them.

Dadaists, tired of the national strife that the war brought, dreamed of uniting the creativity of the peoples of the world into one whole. The favorite directions in the "Cabaret Voltaire", which seemed to the bohemia closest to nature, were: African music, jazz and playing the balalaika.

Art in Germany

In Germany, Dadaism is, first of all, a political protest, expressed through such kind of underground art.

Artistic groups of this country did not so vehemently reject the semantic load of creativity, as did representatives of this style in other states. Here, Dadaism was more of a political and social nature and showed all the bitterness of the people caused by the war and its consequences in the form of a country ruined and unable to rise from its knees.

Also, the German Dadaists H. Hench and G. Gross in their works expressed sympathy for Russia, which at that time was in a state of revolution.

Dada did make a significant contribution to the arts in the 20th century when Gross, Heartfield, Heche and Houseman developed photomontage as well as a number of political magazines.

In the summer of 1920, in honor of the end of the war, the above-mentioned intelligentsia organizes a Dadaist fair, which attracts bohemians from all over the world.

It was in Germanythe collage has been improved, as elements of photomontage have appeared on it in symbiosis with cubism.

In addition to his works in the direction of painting, Husman makes a significant contribution to literary creativity, presenting to the public several "abstract" poems, consisting simply of their set of sounds and reminiscent of a shamanic hiss.

Richter and Egeleng are considered the fathers of Dada cinema.

In France

Dadaism in art received a particularly radical expression in France, since its origin there began even before the appearance of the name of this movement.

People like Duchamp, Picabia and the "poet boxer" Caravan are known for pre-Dadaist works.

The latter released the magazine "Immediately" where he insulted celebrities and did reviews that included made-up stories.

It was there that the founder of Dadaism Tristan Tzana lived.

Paris is considered a storehouse of avant-garde art of that time. Eric Satie, Picasso and Coteau created a scandalous ballet that does not fit into the concept of classical values. Dadaist demonstrations, manifestos, exhibitions and many magazines were constantly published in this country.

Duchamp releases reworked famous paintings of the classics. A real masterpiece of Dadaism is the Mona Lisa with a painted mustache, which gets the name "She's unbearable and it burns."

Ernest, creating his paintings, uses fragments of old engravings. He draws images that everyone can understand, but they are oversaturated with black humor.

Ttsana brought to the attention of the general public a dramaticthe work "Heart of Gas", which in 1923 causes a riot within the Dada association, and Andre Breton demands a split in the current with the subsequent formation of surrealism.

In 1924, Tzana presents the tragedy "Handkerchief of the Clouds" for the last time.

Dada in New York

The second home of the current is New York, which has become a haven for a huge number of artists objectionable to the authorities in other countries.

Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Beatrice Wood and Mann Ray became the heart of Dadaism in the United States of America, soon joined by Arthur Crevin, who evaded the draft into the French army. They exhibited their work in the Alfred Stieglitz Gallery and in the house of the Arensbergs.

New York Dadaists didn't organize manifestos, they expressed their opinion through publications like "Blind" and "New York Dadaism", where they criticize the traditions favored by museums.

American Dadaism was very different from European, it did not carry political protest, but was based on humor.

In 1917, Duchamp put a urinal on display to the artists, on which he stuck a sign with the inscription "Fountain", which shocked all those gathered. Prohibited in those days, the sculpture is now considered a monument of modernism.

Due to Duchamp's departure, the company of famous Dadaists broke up.

In the Netherlands

In the Netherlands the most famous Dadaist was Theo Van Desburg, who published a magazine called "De Stijl". He filled the pages of this edition with works of famousadherents of avant-garde style.

Together with his friends Stirves and Vilmos Hussar, as well as with his wife Nely Van Disberg, he created the Dutch company of Dadaism.

After Disberg's death, it was discovered that in his journal he also published poems of his own composition, however, under the pseudonym I. K. Bonset.

Consequences of Dadaism

By the end of 1924, Dadaism as a separate movement in art ceased to exist. It merged with Surrealism and Social Realism in France and with Modernism in Germany. This trend, which arose in a period of popular despair, is rightly called by many experts a harbinger of postmodernism.

During the Second World War, most of the Dada artists moved to the United States of America.

Adolf Hitler, recognizing only his ideals, considered the art of "Dada" degenerate, desecrating the true (in his opinion) values and unworthy of the existence of a style, so he persecuted and imprisoned artists who worked in this direction. The bulk of the artists who ended up in the German camps had Jewish roots, in connection with which people were subjected to terrible torture and died.

Echoes of Dadaism are still manifested in the anti-artistic and political groups of Bohemia, for example, the Society of Discomfort. Also, the popular Chamboemba group rightfully calls itself a follower of Dadaism.

Some writers consider Lenin a member of the Dada club, as he participated in the balalaika orchestra, which appealed to those gathered at the Cabaret Voltaire, as well ashe lived for some time not far from the building where representatives of this movement gathered.

From time to time, well-known museums organize exhibitions of Dadaist works. Such an exhibition was held in 2006 at the Museum of Modern Art, located in Paris, in Washington, at the National Art Gallery and at the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris. Showings of works in the style of "dadaism" is a tribute to the memory of artists who died during Nazi Germany.

So, let's briefly summarize what this current is and define its main positions.

• Dadaism is an art with an anti-political and bourgeois orientation. He refutes everything realistic, aesthetic and spiritual, copying the behavior of the authorities of that time.
• Painting is the most important area in the 20th century, which was filled with Dadaism. Artists who worked in this power most often used collage, which combines scraps of various bright materials, newspaper clippings and photomontage.
• The music presented by the adherents of this movement is noise in nature.
• Literature is also not very meaningful, the main invention of the Dadaists was poetry, in which instead of words a set of sounds is used, reminiscent of an appeal to the gods of primitive people.
• Movies and plays in this current are also illogical and have strange incoherent titles.
• Their sculptures are ordinary things used in everyday life. The most famous monument to Dadaism is the urinal, whose author gave it the name "Fountain".
• In choreography styleexpressed with dancers dressed in unaesthetic costumes.
• The antics of the Bohemians of that time can be called a manifestation of Dadaism in the culture of behavior.

In this article, we figured out what the Dada style is and why it arose, deciphered its name, talked about its founders, found out the differences between Dadaism in different countries and looked at its main positions in music, literature, painting, film, dance and architecture.

We hope we were able to answer all your questions.