Dadaism was an avant-garde artistic movement.
Dadaism is an artistic and literary movement that emerged during the First World War as a form of protest against the dominant aesthetic canons. The term has its origins in French dadaïsme .
Art historians name Tristan Tzara as the first promoter of this movement that mocked artistic manifestations and sought to destroy the conventions of the established order.
However, the cultural movement as such is believed, by many other historians and artists, to have been created by the German writer Hugo Ball . The year 1916 and the Cabaret Voltaire in Switzerland are thus considered the moment and place where the birth of the one who would revolutionize the world of art in general took place.
Dadaism and avant-garde
Dadaism transcended the artistic avant-garde and was a critique of the values in force during the First World War and the years that followed. This revolutionary claim makes Dadaism often known as anti-art . Its members used, for example, unusual materials to make artistic works.
The absolute freedom, the immediate, the contradiction and the spontaneity of Dadaism sought to overthrow the laws of logic , immobile thought, abstract concepts, the universal and the eternity of principles. The Dadaists proposed chaos over order and called for breaking the boundaries between art and life.
Freedom and spontaneity were pillars of Dadaism.
Main references
There were many authors who were part of Dadaism and who left their deep mark on it and on art in general. This would be the case of Marcel Duchamp , a French artist who is known for such unique works as "The Fountain" (a urinal), or the North American Man Ray , who has "The Architecture of Your Bones" among his most emblematic works.
The German painter Kurt Schwitters is another of the relevant members of Dadaism, a current within which he stood out for creating collages where the main material he used and which became the protagonist was used paper. However, we could also highlight Hans Richter or Richard Hülsenbeck .
Origin of the term Dadaism
Although the origins of the movement's name are unclear, it is believed that Tzara chose this nomination for the first babbling sounds made by a child ( "dada" ). The movement sought to create a new form of art from scratch, just as a child begins his path through life.
However, for other authors, and based on what various illustrious figures of the aforementioned Dadaism commented, such as the Franco-German poet Jean Arp , the name of this cultural movement was obtained by Tristan Tzara from a dictionary. And it is said that, looking for the name that would define that one, he opened a dictionary and looked for the most absurd word. In this case, he found it and used it. We are referring to the French word Dada, which can be translated as wooden horse.
The influence of Dadaism means that, today, there is still debate about what art is and what creations should be considered artistic. The absence of fixed rules and conventions that the Dadaists promulgated are still valid for many artists .