Dada Surrealism And Abstract Expressionism

Kendra Sinovich

Art was and has always been created in response to the era in which it was created. Dada, Surrealism and Abstract expressionism, reacted to their society and how society acted. They react to express the truth. Each movement influenced the next, so in that sense each artwork was an influence to the future in art. With the above being said, I thoroughly agree with the statement. Art up until Dada was often about pleasing society and producing artwork that society wanted to see. Dada started to produce artwork that opposed what society was doing and mocking their horrific actions. This lead to a colossal transformation in art that would carry on to be seen in Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism and many more movements to come.

They explored and feasted on dreams and the subconscious as a valid form of reality. A willingness to depict images of perverse sexuality, scatology, decay and violence. Surrealism was highly affected by Dadaism, their breaking of tradition, their representation of non-art and mostly Surrealism relished on Dada’s use of chance and spontaneity. For the Surrealists, the idea of skill from training was understood always remembering their technique when making works, but their philosophy was to let go of the constraints of learned skills and traditional methods of making art. They sought out children's art, "primitive" art and "outsider" art such as the art made by patients in mental institutions, to stoke the fires of their almost incoherent inventions. Today, we associate the word "surreal" with strange juxtapositions or absurd combinations, like those experienced in dreams. This is exactly what Surrealists wanted to represent, putting unrelated subject matter together in one painting or by completely letting go and letting automatism take over in their works. Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Salvador Dali was a great example of this movement. Dali incorporated many techniques seen in Surrealism such as decalcomania in this work. There is a sense of perfection in the way he paints but total imperfection in the actual reality of the painting, it looks like a nightmare turning into

To the contemporary audience the whole enterprise seemed like youthful antagonism, hardly worthy of the name “art”. Art up until this point had always had subject matter but now the process, revealed by the artists brush strokes, is the subject matter. Abstract Expressionism was very new and extremely different visually but it relied heavily on past movements mainly: the Dadaist's reliance on chance, and the Surrealist's endorsement of Freudian theory that embraces the relevance of dreams, sexual drives and the authenticity of ego (unfiltered self-centeredness, i.e. narcissism), which this art expresses through "action." The key to understanding Abstract Expressionism is to understand the concept of "deep" from a 1950s dictionary. "Deep" meant not decorative, not facile and not insincere. Abstract Expressionists strove to uncover their most personal feelings directly through making art, and thereby achieve some transformation or, if possible, some personal redemption. Therefore, Abstract Expressionism's physicality comes from explorations of inner turmoil and anxiety. Some of this distress came from exposure to the disturbing reports of horrors and pain endured during World War II, just as Dada was affected by World War I. Noncompliance with any art rules to date separated them from the sins of their parents, who had unleashed