The Effect of War on Art

            Dada and surrealism both changed the way art was not only created but the way it was perceived as well. Both Dada and surrealism challenged authority, the academy, and the nature of art. Dada artists were critiquing politics, war, and the bourgeois society. Surrealism was also critiquing the bourgeois society with Marxist and Freudian influences. Dada changed the concept of art because a lot of the art was created with the use of chance. The artwork being created with the use of chance it is not completely reflective of the individual artist. This had never been seen before, thus changing the concept of art. Surrealism changed the concept of art because we are seeing a big interest in social, sexual, and cultural values. The subconscious and dreams were also a big influence to Surrealism.

            Looking at the Surrealist artwork The Phenomenon of Ecstasy by Salvador Dali we can immediately see that the content is like nothing we have ever seen before. Rather than painting a canvas Dali chose to put together pre-existing photos into a photomontage. Surrealist artists began to look toward photography as a more “objective” form of art. We can see that this photomontage is sexually driven and has a dream like sense to it. We can see that Dali was influenced by Sigmund Freud when creating this artwork due to its interest in sex, the subconscious, and being in a dream-like state. The Phenomenon of Ecstasy seems to be based around sexual obsession and the subconscious. The pictures Dali chose to use are mostly cropped and close up photos of female faces though there are some smaller images of other fairly random things such as ears and a chair. This content is definitely not conventional or something that would have been approved of by the academy. Dali chose to separate these photos using thick black lines rather than making the photos overlap like they would in a collage. Surrealist and Dada artists both changed the concept of art due to their ideas of collage, photomontage, and “ready made” sculpture. No longer are the artists using solely there paint and canvas but are now using pre-existing materials such as pictures. The forms that we see in Surrealist and Dada artwork are at times hard to identify because many are forms coming from the artist’s subconscious. We also are starting to see some more geometric forms as well.

            In regards to Duchamp’s “readymades” I feel as if it could possibly be considered artwork however that is somewhat of a stretch. I don’t think the artist who buys the object should get credit for the object. The reason I feel that way is because the artist who bought the object did not create the object or come up with the idea of the object they just bought it and called it their sculpture. That makes me think that anyone could buy anything and consider it to be their own sculpture and take credit for it.