Dada as a Response to
the Horrors of War?
Dada was an Art movement with its peak in 1916-1920s. This
movement was established as a position against the War, and
particularly World War I. They saw all the negativity of the
war. They also were against the Art. It was a protest against
beauty, because Art didn't save civilization from wars.
The members of that movement organized demonstrations,
propagandas, wrote brochures, manifestos against the
cruelty of war using ideas of Arthur Rimbaund in poetry, and
critical ideas of Max Jacob (who later died in the Nazi
concentration camp) and Guillaume Apollinaire. They established
the new Journal where they wrote anti-war and anti-terror
articles sometimes by using satire. Also the group made
different absurd theatrical performances highly
criticizing the first World War in Cabaret Voltaire . Tzara,
one of the leader, of that group, wrote a lot of articles to
different European newspapers, trying to emphasize the
whole horror of war.
As Dada movement Surrealism was also under against terror
thoughts about World War I . This was one of the
predominant facts for both movements to create something
irrational and surreal. Surrealism inherited pessimistic and
revolutionary mood because of Dada movement .
Dada's main artistic idea was to make various activities and
theories, instead of producing actual representational art. The
follower of Dada came up with the ideas of irrationality,
accidentalness. The “Law of Chances” created by both Jean
Arp (he through the pieces of paper on the floor, and where the
paper fell down, glue it to the background) and Marcel Duchamp
. Dadaists made a lot of experiments by avoiding all kind of
artistic laws and orders that were established by the masters
in Art before them.
Surrealism inherited ideas from Dada about anti-consciousness,
anti-controlled way of thinking in the process of creating
pictures. They preferred to use subconscious mind and feelings.
They believed in the power of dreaming (Dali), in intuitive
associations, and in the idea of chances (Ernst). Some Dadaists
Surrealists used a lot of ideas of absurd and illogic.
One of the facts that Dada was a precursor of Surrealism is
that some Dadaist artists and poets became Surrealists in their
future artistic careers, such as a painter- Max Ernst, a
photographer- May Ray, and the poet - Tristan Tzara.
“Invasion of the Night” is one of the most well- known picture
by Roberto Matta. He was one of the members of Surrealist
group. This pretty big (96.5 x 152.7 cm) oil painting was
made in 1940, when the artist moved to New York from Paris.
This work was made in biomorphic or abstract Surrealistic
style. The use of organic shapes, absence of strong contrast
lines, smooth color transitions, warm palette choice , defused
forms, all make the illusion of dream, the impression of
sleeping silence.
The composition is very unique: it is visually reminding the
chessboard. It is not made by lines, but by the smooth
transitions of the main two yellow forms in background and two
main blue- greenish forms, painted as chess squares. The
painting makes me to feel the fear because of the luminous
saffron color with white spots in between, it makes me feel as
canvas has holes in it, and because of this strange use of
half-divided horizon line. The tiny red objects all over
the canvas transfers the feeling of anxiousness to
me.
But at the same time this masterpiece amazes me. I can't stop
gazing on the picture, because there are so many details are
spread all around the canvas. My eyes jump from one object to
another. My brain continues drawing patterns of these brown
transparent lines all across the painting. I have and
impression that this brown-greenish shape (in the upper left
side of the work) that looks like a bird, will scream and
interrupt this terrifying silence created by the invasion of
night.
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