dada and surrealism
...hough automatism and use of dreams. Automatism, or the ‘dictation of thought without control of the mind’, implies the intervention of chance and the abandonment of the critical mind. The Surrealists strove for simplicity and impulsiveness. They wanted to answer the question "how shall I be free?" and to convey thought devoid of any spoiled preconceptions. The surrealist movement might be described as both the common denominator and the most extreme variants of irrational, fantastic phenomena recurring through the history of art. Robert Hughes suggests in Shock of the New that the aim of Surrealism was that “Surrealism wanted to set people free: to save them”. Surrealism had more to do with mental processes (especially subconscious) and a philosophy of the irrational than with a specific style or technique. There is on the one hand the class of painters for whom calligraphy, animation and movement are the essentials, regardless of the subject represented. Joan Miro belongs in this category, with the artwork Harlequin’s Carnival a perfect example of this style. On the other hand, there are ‘descriptives’ who were inspired by Chirico (An Italian painter, who founded the metaphysical school of painting). Rene Magritte and his controversial artwork The Treason of Images is a fine example of this category. With the former, the idea is simply suggested without concern for exact representation; with the latter, the scene is unreal, the objects and the human figures which comprise it are painted with fidelity. Marcel Duchamp was possibly the most key art-theorist and avant-garde provocateur of the twentieth century. He directed attention away from the work of art as a material object, and instead presented it as something which was essentially an idea: he shifted the emphasis from making to thinking. This is the area where his ‘ready-mades’ came into play. The ‘ready-mades’ were everyday objects isolated from their normal environment and presented by the artist as fully-fledged works of art. Emphasis is placed upon the artist “not as craftsman, but as gifted perceiver whose choice of an object is seen as a creative act.” The readymade thus becomes the “focus of a meditation on the relation between external things and our perception of them.” The Dadaists were out there to shock the public and try new things. Duchamp definitely succeeded in this aim. The notion of the readymade lies not in the work itself, but in the design behind it. Importance is placed upon the artist “not as craftsman, but as gifted perceiver whose choice of an object is seen as a creative act.” The ready-made thus becomes the “focus of a meditation on the relation between external things and our perception of them.” For some critics the "true value" of the readymade lies in that idiosyncrasy which gives an object a character by itself. Duchamp's Fountain was one of a series of "ready-mades", which he started making around 1914. Duchamp says that he was using Fountain to show that it is false that only works of art have aesthetic value. Another readymade was Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel which was titled Not Duchamp. This was an early example of kinetic art, which was mounted on a kitchen stool. Basically it is a bicycle wheel installed upside down on a stool, and is a clever commentary on movement and stability. Duchamp created this in 1913 and had it in his studio where he likened the movement of the wheel to the soothing flicker of a fire in the fireplace. He was emphatic that ready-mades were not selected for their visual appearance or out of any sense of good taste. They were picked based on chance and indifference. Yet another ready-made was a ferocious-looking metal stand for holding bottles titled “Bottle Rack”. The purpose of the ready-mades was to mock society and ask the question “when does art stop becoming art?” By taking an object, which had a functional use and not considered art, is then called an artwork, critics need to see that object has form, shape, colour and an aesthetic value. Because of the narrow-mindness of the society, Duchamp was mocking the traditional values of art, and enforcing that Dada was a period of anti-art. Members of the Berlin Dada movement, Heartfield’s artworks were based on his revolutionary political beliefs. A devoted communist, he was subjective to the campaigning propaganda of the Soviet Union, specifically Productivism, which promoted the self-governing of visual communication through the medium of photomontage. He made use of magazines and newspapers as resources because they were quick, inexpensive and readily accessible. Anyone and everyone could create a visually-based message from available supplies. Using found imagery, his photomontages were pressing and a well-built form of propaganda because they conveyed instantaneously to his audience. This picture helps to show how Heartfield used his art to support his own political beliefs as well as to attack the Nazi party. In his attempt to raise social consciousness and political awareness in his country Germany, he eventually fled Germany because of the threat of political persecution. 5 Finger hat die Hand (the hand has five fingers) is a famous poster that was exhibited in the 1929 Film und Fotoexhibition, organized by the German Werkbund. John Heartfield arranged a room in the exhibition, displaying multiple copies of the poster as they may have appeared on the street. Over the door he admonished the viewer to "Use Photography as a Weapon." Heartfield supported the Communist party which was ‘List 5’ on the election ballot. This piece represented a slogan to support the number 5. [“The hand has five fingers. With five you seize the enemy. Vote List five Communist Party!”] While Heartfield’s photomontages differed in their official appearance, he relied time and again on breaking the audience’s frame of reference through the unanticipated juxtaposition of text and image to ultimately communicate intense and thoughtful meaning. Through the rebellion of the original materials, primarily found objects from newspapers and magazines, he exposed the viewer to an alternative point of view. After World War II, he returned to the former East Germany. Heartfield’s early work was exhibited throughout Europe in the late 1960s and 70s where it influenced many communicators who wanted to unite art and politics. Media not only creates and shapes our identity as individuals but is responsible for stereotypes which place restrictions on our development as individuals. Through seclusion and estrangement, these images serve to deter people from developing as whole, satisfied individuals within society. “If I collect documents, combine them and do that in a clever way, then the agitational-propagandistic effect on the masses will be immense. And that is the most important thing for us. That is the foundation of our work. Therefore, it is our task to influence the masses, as well, as strongly, as intensely as possible.”-John Heartfield Joan Miro was one of a few Surrealists whose works tended towards abstraction. His paintings are full of bizarre shapes, many of which look like animals or microscopic organisms. In Harlequin’s Carnival strange insect-like creatures dance and make music. This kind of abstraction, found in this artwork, is known as biomorphic, because the forms are based on organic, rather than geometric shapes. Miro said Harlequin’s Carnival was inspired by “hallucinations brought on by hunger”. Harlequin’s Carnival was a form of spontaneous composition intended to express impulses and images arising directly from the unconscious. Fantasy is expressed Harlequin's Carnival. The extraordinary harlequin is demonstrating his tricks for us. Since all this stimulation must be for the most part an issue of vision, Miro has positioned a number of eyes and eyelike shapes throughout the picture. In the upper left-hand corner there is a large ear; the better to hear the music. Through an assortment of forms and symbols and energetic colours, Miro recreates the joyful and lively world of the harlequin. Surrealism was powerfully influenced by modern psychology, which recognised the subconscious as a storehouse of concealed occurrences, uncertainties and requirements. Many of the Surrealists were largely immersed in the work of Sigmund Freud, who alleged that our subconscious feelings are emblematically symbolised in our imaginings. Around the time when the Harlequin’s Carnival was made, Miro became progressively more involved in piercing the world of the subliminal and using chance effects in his works. After working from hallucinations, he increasingly used automatic drawing and paintings, letting the material suggest the direction of his work. In Miro’s works the interaction of images and representation from dreams, and raw being unite to produce images nearing a state of full biological activity. Rene Magritte's well-known 1928 painting The Treason of Images presents an accurate depiction of a pipe supplemented by the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe). This ironic juxtaposition of text and image initially shocks the viewer, challenging common sense. Magritte' life-long obsession w...