Surrealism and Dada Pictures

Here are just a few prime examples of artwork from the Dadaist and Surrealist movements:

Max Ernst's "Celebes" or "Elephants Celebes" (Dada artwork)

Marcel Janco's "Marine Landscape" (Dada artwork)

Salvador Dali's "Crucifixion" (Surrealist artwork)

(note the almost realistic quality Dali uses)

Joan Miro's "The Garden" (Surrealist Artwork)

Salvador Dali's "Metamorphosis of Narcissus" (Surrealist artwork)

(notice the almost realistic quality Dali uses)

Dada and Surrealism (pictures to come later)

Thesis: Both radical new looks at artwork, Dada and Surrealism made themselves very apparent during and following World War I and displayed a restlesness mainly in Europe and North America.


I. Dada

• Founded in Zurich in 1916 by a group of refugees from WWI
• Name is based on the nonsensical quality of the art
• Ironically held a no-nonsense artistic aim: to protest the madness of war without the use of artistic resaon and respect of the establishment
• Main strategy: to denounce and shock
• More serious purpose was to awaken imagination
• Jean Arp: Founder of Dada, and collagist, who believed that "everything that comes into being or is made by man is art"
• Kurt Schwitters: German collagist, created "merz" (a collage made up of a collection of non-art materials)
• Dada dissolved into anarchy in 1922

II. Surrealism

• Power of the unconscious
• Began as a literary movement in 1920's and 1930's
• Godfather of the movement: poet, Andre Breton
• Grew from Freudian free-association and dream analysis
• Experimenting with automatism (a form of creating without conscious control) to tap into "unconcious imagery"
• 2 forms: improvised art/total loss of conscious control (Miro), realistic techniques to present the hallucinatory (Dali)
• Miro - Surrealist who practiced total loss of conscious control to get the proper blurred imagery associated with this movement
• Ernst - both Dadaist and Surrealist
• Dali - realistic technique user to present the hallucinatory (paintings often disturbing)
• Magritee - Similar to Dali in how disturbing the art was --> often a result of his being terrified of many normal things on Earth

Strickland Art, Pt. 2

I. Post-Impressionism: Van Gough
--A. Post-impressionism
--B. "sun-scorched landscapes and brooding self-portraits"
--C. Very religious --> Art = "mission"
--D. Took to impressionist outdoor scenes as opposed to social realist themes.
--E. Goal: To express the poetry hidden in peasants, and the healing power in nature.
--F. Horror of academic technique.
--G. Hard time selling paintings
--H. simplified forms, zones of bright color without shadow, and expressive brushwork.

II. Early Expressionism: Munch
--A. Expression of modern anguish and unequaled power.
--B. Portrayal of extreme emotions like jealousy, sexual desire, and loneliness.
--C. Painting: "The Scream"

III. Symbolism
--A. "Symbolism": discarding the visible world of surface appearances for the inner world of fantasy
--B. Rousseau
--> Despite impressive detail, his figures were flat and the scale, proportion, and perspective were skewed.
--C. Redon
-->Use of bizarre creatures (macabre insects, amoeboid monsterms, plants with human heads, a hot-air balloon eyeball).
--> "suggesting rather than describing his subject"
--D. Ryder: Seascapes
--> Looked to nature for inspiration

III. Modern Architecture
--A. Changed by new needs, new technology, and new materials.
--B. New forms of building emerge: suspension bridges, grain elevators, factories, etc.
--C. Breaking free from ancient Greek and Roman prototypes
--D. "Form follows function"
--E. Louis Sullivan
--> "invented" the skyscraper
--> vertical towers
--> "stark gemoetric simplicity"
--> Did NOT avoid decorative elements.

IV. Modern Art
--A. "Modernism was a relentless quest for radical freedom of expression."
--B. Patrons no longer involved in artistic process --> artist stresses private concerns, experiences, and imagination as the sole source of art.
--C. Pure abstraction, where form, line and color dominate.
--D. School of Paris
--E. Fauvism: exploding with color
--F. Sculpture --> More Antirealism
--> Brancusi
--G. Matisse
--> Art of omission
--> Feel-good paintings
--> Ultimate paper cutouts
--H. Picasso ("king of modern art")
--> Blue Period
--> Rose Period
--> "Negro" Period
--I. Cubism
--J. Futurism --> Motion: "Kinetic Art"