Dadaism and Surrealism - Essay Example

The essay "Dadaism and Surrealism" discovers the important art movements, dadaism, and surrealism. Dada that is a means of expression praises nonsense and irrationality and shuts down logic and typical subjects. Ideally, Dada was anti-rational, anti-aesthetic, and anti-idealistic in all its activities. Despite the irrationality, Dada was significant in expressing the horror that spread amongst people during world war I. Dada the result of suppression was also the doorway to one of the greatest movements known as surrealism.

A very important factor of surrealism is the essence of juxtapositions. I personally identify juxtaposition as the peak of in-originality, the moment when the perception of art as still framings of landscapes and portraits evolved into a greater means of expression in dada and surrealism. Dada initiated as an international anti-art movement that opposed the way the civilized world appreciated works of art. On the other hand, Surrealism catapulted the anti-art attacks on rational and 'civilized' standards fostered by Dada.

Both Surrealism and Dada work with the concept of chance. Dada’s use of the concept of chance in their art was extensive where he completely surrendered to the concept of chance; it is almost as if they trusted that concept with their precious art. Whether it be assembling certain words and reapplying them as poetry, or by conjoining random pieces of material together to later create a collage by “chance”, Dada Artists were all for giving up the factor of thought process. for ‘process’ itself.

It is almost as though they completely let go after a period of constraint where they applied that action of letting go into their art by leaving it to chance. In fact, the word 'Dada' that ambiguously means 'hobby horse' and 'father' came up by chance and acquired international appreciation due to its nonsensical and childish cycle. The Dadaism artists included Man Ray, Francis Picabia, and Jean Arp. On the other hand, Max Ernst represented the Surrealist painters. The first step towards Dada was to implement absurd gestures.

These gestures would attack the idea of past icons and their masterpieces’ like Marcel Duchamp on Leonardo da Vinci's production, the Mona Lisa. The gesture was simple yet dense with energy that represented irrationality, a simple mustache, and beard drawn on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa. Nevertheless, one aspect of Dada that fascinates me is how the Dadaist dealt with politics. The movement revolted against political powers in favor of society liberties. Moreover, just like Dadaism, Surrealist is equally associated with political statements.

Actually, the artists responded to the world they lived in and expressed their discomfort and worry to the current social and political status. More so, majority of the Dadaists and their supporters were involved with and had knowledge of anarchism to some degree. Most significantly, Dada could not have leaders but the movement on the contrary had representatives and spokespersons instead of an actual leader that took upon that role. This was against the concept of Dadaism. Activities relating to Dadaism meant to assure a vehement distraction to art history by scandalizing the works of art (Carlin and Evans 1).

The Dadaism movement centers on creating a public unrest. In fact, Dadaist movements emanated from political unrest, unequal resource allocation, class struggle, and confused social roles (Hofmann 1). Hence, a political and social movement aimed at revealing the evils and anarchy in the society. The Dadaism political movement began at the end of World War I in Zurich and New York cities. The movement and its