A Profile of the Dada Art Movement

According to our text, the Dada movement was spawned out of the "revulsion" of the horrors of WWI (Kleiner). The movement seemed to stand against everything the war stood, and started in the first place, for. The weaponry of the war, with their mass mutilation ability sickened the Dadaists and they rebelled against convention in the only way they were able; through their art. This means that the movement would most likely not have been started if WWI had not radically changed the world's outlook on war and the horrors thereof.

The Dada movement was in direct opposition to logic, convention, sanity, precision, organization, and had the universal thought that the only salvation of the world at the time was through "political anarchy, the irrational, and the intuitive" (Kleiner). The Dadaists styles were illogical, freeing, therapeutic and powerful. There were many pieces that were offensive, while others were humorous.

An example of offensive works is called the Christ Child seen here: http://images.artnet.com/images_US/magazine/features/kachur/kachur7-21-05-2.jpg by Max Ernst (who could be both a Dadaist and/or Surrealist). It is a painting of Mary spanking Jesus (who's halo has fallen to the ground) in front of three witnesses. This image is extremely offensive to some and has been labeled sacrilegious, heretical, and blasphemous by both credible art historian (Kachur) and bloggers (Meeg)& (Steinberg).

Works Cited

Kachur, Lewis. SURREALIST AMERICA. 21 July 2005. 18 September 2009 .

Kleiner, Fred S., Mamiya, Christin J. Gardner's Art Through The Ages A Concise History of Western Art. Ed. Sharon Adams Poore. Belmont: Thomson Higher Education, 2008.

Meeg. Too Much Information. 16 December 2008. 18 September 2009 .

Steinberg, Leo. Max Ernst's Blasphemy. 22 September 2005. 18 September 2009 .