http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/surr/hd_surr.htm
http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/dada
http://arthistory.about.com/cs/arthistory10one/a/dada.htm
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-surrealism.htm
http://metmuseum.org/toah/hd/surr/hd_surr.htm
Surrealism
Surrealism originated in the late 1910s and early '20s as a literary movement that experimented with a new mode of expression called automatic writing, or automatism, which sought to release the unbridled imagination of the subconscious. Officially consecrated in Paris in 1924 with the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism by the poet and critic André Breton (1896–1966), Surrealism became an international intellectual and political movement. Breton, a trained psychiatrist, along with French poets Louis Aragon (1897–1982), Paul Éluard (1895–1952), and Philippe Soupault (1897–1990), were influenced by the psychological theories and dream studies of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and the political ideas of Karl Marx (1818–1883). Using Freudian methods of free association, their poetry and prose drew upon the private world of the mind, traditionally restricted by reason and societal limitations, to produce surprising, unexpected imagery. The cerebral and irrational tenets of Surrealism find their ancestry in the clever and whimsical disregard for tradition fostered by Dadaism a decade earlier.
Dadism
The Non-art Movement (1916-23)
Dada was, officially, not a movement, its artists not artists and its artnot art. That sounds easy enough, doesn't it? Of course, there is a bit more to the story of Dadaism than this simplistic explanation.
Dada was a literary and artistic movement born in Europe at a time when the horror of World War I was being played out in what amounted to citizens' front yards. Due to the war, a number of artists, writers and intellectuals - notably of French and German nationality - found themselves congregating in the refuge that Zurich (in neutral Switzerland) offered. Far from merely feeling relief at their respective escapes, this bunch was pretty ticked off that modern European society wouldallow the war to have happened. They were so angry, in fact, that they undertook the time-honored artistic tradition of protesting.
Banding together in a loosely-knit group, these writers and artists used any public forum they could find to (metaphorically) spit on nationalism, rationalism, materialism and any other -ism which they felt had contributed to a senseless war. In other words, the Dadaists were fed up. If society is going in this direction, they said, we'll have no part of it or its traditions. Including...no, wait!...especially artistic traditions. We, who are non-artists, will create non-art - since art (and everything else in the world) has no meaning, anyway.
About the only thing these non-artists all had in common were their ideals. They even had a hard time agreeing on a name for their project."Dada" - which some say means "hobby horse" in French and others feel is just baby talk - was the catch-phrase that made the least amount of sense, so "Dada" it was.
Dada was, officially, not a movement, its artists not artists and its artnot art. That sounds easy enough, doesn't it? Of course, there is a bit more to the story of Dadaism than this simplistic explanation.
Dada was a literary and artistic movement born in Europe at a time when the horror of World War I was being played out in what amounted to citizens' front yards. Due to the war, a number of artists, writers and intellectuals - notably of French and German nationality - found themselves congregating in the refuge that Zurich (in neutral Switzerland) offered. Far from merely feeling relief at their respective escapes, this bunch was pretty ticked off that modern European society wouldallow the war to have happened. They were so angry, in fact, that they undertook the time-honored artistic tradition of protesting.
Banding together in a loosely-knit group, these writers and artists used any public forum they could find to (metaphorically) spit on nationalism, rationalism, materialism and any other -ism which they felt had contributed to a senseless war. In other words, the Dadaists were fed up. If society is going in this direction, they said, we'll have no part of it or its traditions. Including...no, wait!...especially artistic traditions. We, who are non-artists, will create non-art - since art (and everything else in the world) has no meaning, anyway.
About the only thing these non-artists all had in common were their ideals. They even had a hard time agreeing on a name for their project."Dada" - which some say means "hobby horse" in French and others feel is just baby talk - was the catch-phrase that made the least amount of sense, so "Dada" it was.