Comparing Dadaism and Surrealism
Although Surrealism supposedly grew out from Dadaism in Paris the two movements came from very different time periods and cultural settings. Dadaism was a wartime movement, founded in the midst of an international slaughter of young men, and the world must have felt like it was being run by a bunch of crazy elitists; where as surrealism emerged from a time of peace and prosperity. Dadists called their work "anti-art" but when you really look at the reasonings behind this you can see that they were just trying to move away from the basic idea of art and find ways to make art in different ways that hadn't been done before. I get the feeling they felt restricted on how they could express themselves, they would have used art as a medium to express their feelings but the art had too many rules and regulations, hence why they used the term anti-art.
Another way that Dadism and surrealism differ from each other is in the way that Dadism could not, by definition, have leaders. The group had a spokesman but nobody took a position of guidance. This is thought to be one of the reasons that Dada dissolved only a few years into the movement, they didn't have the guidance of one spokesperson making it very difficult to coordinate or control anything. Surrealism did have a leader, they called him a "Pope" and his name was Andre Breton. It was possible for the surrealists to be led simply because the group was a self-contained lot in Paris, where as the Dadists were scattered all over Europe. The Surrealists leader was said to be quite harsh, and he willingly kicked people out of the group without a second thought if they displeased him. This being said, he still managed to keep the surrealist group together for 20 years.
The Dadaism art is strongly linked to the damage that was caused by wars, they used their art in a way to send messages and replicate the 'random' killings which they saw happening. They claimed their impersonal view on art replicated the impersonal and random killings of men. This is, I suppose, the greatest difference between the two art movements, Dadaism was born into an era of war and deaths, while Surrealism was born into a peaceful place. The wounds of the way were either ignored, or celebrated. Surrealism came after the war, when everybody just wanted to forget. Surrealism was a way of people reading fantasy poems, looking at happy fantasy pictures of art and using them as a way to never look back and remember what happened. The art and poems during the surrealist movement were all describes as being 'healing' and 're-constructive'; replacing a time which was full of unhappiness and violence with the dreams on the subconscious, happy places. Dadaism was on the other hand fact based, and incredibly political, attempting to send a message and spark reactions and thought rather than being happy and calming.
You can see a very distinct difference in the two types of art when you research the paintings and creations made in these eras. The Dadaism pieces are all very thoughtful, they represent things which a much deeper meaning than first meets the eye. The Dadaist painting look like a colossal mess, like they're putting all of their head jammed with thoughts down onto canvas, and as a result they're creating very in depth, meaningful but confusing work; much like if you look at work by mental patients, it's a great mess with lots of hidden meaning. The surrealists work is a total contrast. The pieces area all very fantasy-like. They're happy and free, it looks like the painters and creators are so happy they don't have a care in the world, they just want to paint without meaning.
Dadaists are trying to use their work to express a pre-meditated meaning and message while surrealists use randomness and craziness in their work to create a totally different meaning that is subjective to the viewer.
(Information above derived and collected mainly from the book "art history unstuffed" by Dr. Jeanne SM)
Comparing Surrealist and Symbolism
I have already established that surrealism is an art movement created from fantasy, randomness and the subconscious mind which makes dreams and combines things which are so un-realistic it takes people away from reality and gives them an escape from their world. Symbolism is totally different, it states that the work should only be created to resemble the absolute truths. All of their writings came from facts, and were written about things that were happening at the time (much like the Dadaist movement I talked about earlier). The symbolism movement had three leaders, which were all poets. The intention of their work was to express the actual in a way that was totally and utterly different from the surrealists, who used no facts at all.
The symbolism and Dadaism movements therefore sound very similar in the way that they are both created to represent a truth, the work is derived from facts. Dadaism is created to send a message, it was created in a time of great doom and the work all has a pretty morbid feel about it, creating work that looks random, but actually has underlying messages which tell stories about great sadnesses and losses. This differs from the symbolists because the symbolists work was not random at all, they have a message they want to send and they create work with a very clear message. Symbolism often incorporated the spiritual aspects of life, as well as imagination and dreams.
The symbolists work was mainly revolved around religious meanings, which were not hidden in the paintings, but were not obvious unless you are very familiar with the messages it was sending, where as the Dadaists work revolved around war and devastation, and the surrealists work was an attempt to cover up sadness and reality (like the other two movements) with happiness and creative fantasy like paintings/creations. The medias which are used differ between each movement too, the Dadaists mainly used collage, photography and painting, the surrealists were painting based, as were the symbolists.
No comments:
Post a Comment