Dada And Surrealism: Art Between The Wars

Thesis: Dadaism and Surrealism, two revolutionary new art movements in Europe and America in the early 1900's, sought to shock and defy common mindsets.

I. Dada

-founded in Zurich in 1916 by refugees from WWI

-named after nonsense word

-protested war

-main strategy to denounce and shock

-John Arp- one of the founders of Dada

<--Game of Chance

-Kurt Schwitters- created "merz", collages of non-art material to make art

II. Surrealism

-created two years after Dada, began as literary movement

-goes beyond the real, deliberately bizarre

-Miro- tried to banish reason- "Dutch Interior II"

-Ernst- employed ambiguous titles

<--Little Tear Gland That Says Tic Tac

-Dali- based his technique on his own neuroses