The Development of The Dadaism - Essay Example

Client Graphic Design and the Connection to Dadaism The cultural movement of Dadaism in the early 20th century was a result of expressions of displeasure over World War I. The movement encompassed art, literature, philosophy, theatre, poetry, and most aspects of creative and intellectual pursuits. Dadaism was considered to not be a movement of artistic nature, but a movement of ‘anti-art’ that rejected the traditionalists and the bourgeoisie, which was used to describe those with money and power. In creating anti-art, the Dadaists created some fundamental concepts that led to the development of graphic design. In looking at the development of Dadaism, its origins and theoretical concepts, one can make a close association with contemporary graphic design development. The most difficult thing about discussing Dada is that those who created the work that they proclaimed Dada, all had differing definitions and vague referencing to what would define it. In fact, a lack of definition is at the core of what became the Dada movement. However, as in all things, time has created some context from which the Dada period can be referenced. As well, the core of the philosophies that were developed during the time was a sense that the world was in turmoil and that an anarchists ideal was what was needed to strike a note against the corruptions and political climates that had contributed to World War( Elger 7). In fact, Dadaists created a manifesto to discuss the ‘demands’ of the movement toward promoting change. Richard Huelsenbeck and Raoul Hausmann created a manifest that outlined the principles Client Last Name 2 and expectations of the Dadaists on society. Within the manifest were such demands as the immediate mechanization of all labor so that mankind could be free to think and create, as well as the immediate seizure of all land so that property was no longer valued and food was dispersed to all people (Harrison and Wood 259). While based on Marxian theory, some anarchists did not actually join the Communist Party, while others did in protest of the bourgeoisie. It is most widely accepted that Dada was created in Zurich around 1916 and had a short popularity after which it ended in 1920. Richard Huelsenbeck wrote a major and important article on the life of Dada in 1920 that was published in En Avant Dada: Eine Geschichte des Dadaismus. His theory on Dada included examples of a primal nature that described the Dadaist. He said ‘The Dadaist, as the psychological man, has brought back his gaze from the distance and considers it important to have shoes that fit and a suit without holes in it”(Harrison and Wood 261). In other words, the Dadaist is concerned with the practicality of life, rather than the frivolous nature of analysis and contemplation. However, the concept is problematic in it requires a great deal of thought and contemplation to adopt any philosophical stance on issues of human existence. None the less, the Dadaist was concerned with breaking down the overwrought corruptive nature of the work through protests of anarchy and of overthrowing the current tumultuous nature of the world. The ironic importance of the Dada movement was in its development of the way of looking at art for meaning. According to Arntson (27), the Dadaists “questioned meaning itself with an assault on all accepted values and conventional behavior”. In the process of developing a concept that was anti-art and that insisted on being founded upon the basis of proletariat values, art was redirected into a conceptualization of the meaning behind the visual, rather than the Client Last Name 3 representational value. This concept of meaning would allow for the technique and skill of an artist to become secondary to the meaning that the art would have. The commentary on social issues would become the focal point of the work, rather than the craft of the artist. The artwork that appeared during the Dada period was, as stated, considered ‘anti-art’. Some artists, such as Van de Velde gave up painting on canvas in favor of embracing the aesthetics of graphic design. There was a practical reason for this as well as they could make a living as graphic artists over that of fine artists. However, the point of view of the Dadaists who embraced graphic design over fine art was not the aspect of a career, but in seeing graphic design as a way to extend their creative lives (Hollis 25). For the Dadaists, graphic design became more than conceptualized, but became meaningful for its artistic value, despite their stance against the concept of art. In the tradition of the Dada, a type of poetry emerged that was indicative of the future of graphic design. In Guillaume Apollinaire’s, Calligrammes, a work of poetry published in 1918, the way in which the words were arranged and depicted was as relevant to the poem as was the content (Apollinaire, Greet, and Lockerbie 3). The theory behind the new concept in art that was developing as a result of the differing movements within the modern period was that art should reflect a global sense of a contemporary consciousness. In using the visual representation of the work as an important factor to the content of the work, the commentary could be broadened. This changed the nature of graphic representation for the modern world. One of the most important aspects of the movement was the work begun in typography. In 1923, a new theory was propagated that defined print work as not merely the written word, but of the design of print. This new way of thinking about typography was a result of work that had Client Last Name 4 been done by Dadaists and with the development of Constructivists (Hollis 25). As Dadaists had developed the concept of meaning within the art, the creation of typography and the assemblage of the written work was defined for its visual importance, rather than for the meaning of the words that were represented. In understanding the way in which typography was used, one can look at the way in which the type is spatially designed. Type can be, and was seen as noise on the page, a way to express an emotional content, rather than just convey a written message. The concept of the Dadaists was to borrow the mass marketing look from the commercialized sector and use it as a way of expressing counterculture ideals. By using a style of work that was mundane, yet elevated to the status of art, the Dadaists blurred the lines between the ideas of high and low end art (Heller and Fili 104). In creating a new way of thinking about the written word, the Dadaists instituted graphic design as a new form of fine art. Another innovation that took place through the work of the Dadaists was the photomontage. The photomontage of the Dadaists was comprised of taking magazine pictures and arranging them in a collage in order to make a statement. This was considered an attempt to give insult to the bourgeoisie in taking common materials and elevating them to fine art status. According to Wood and Edwards (414), Hausmann suggested that photomontage was “a mirror wrenched from the chaos of war and revolution, as new to the eye as it was to the mind”. The photomontage is a piece of art that creates a sense of associations through the thoughts of the artist on how he arranges the photos. In creating a sense of meaning in the work, the artist takes images that create a somewhat overwhelming collage of information from which a meaning can be derived. This methodology has been influential in concepts of graphic design for its visual Client Last Name 5 impact context. The Dada movement was intended to recreate societal constructs of philosophy in order to promote a world that no longer revered a social class structure that was defined by the concept of fine or mundane. In looking at the work done in the period, one can see that it was highly influential on artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Peter Blake. In an extension of Dada theory, the artists of the Pop Art movement also sought to make the mundane elevated to the status of fine art. The irony of both movements is that the very way in which they meant to chastise the concepts of marketing in conjunction with the concept of the elite, they helped the advertising world find new methods of stronger communication so that ideas such as branding and commercialization of not only products, but for people, ideas, and concepts as products, could flourish in the increasing industrialized world. Dada took place during a time of great turmoil and dissatisfaction with the state of a socially stratified cultural structure that brought on the outbreak of World War I. The movement was a rebellion against traditional ideas of art and its associated creative endeavors. The movement terms its theories as ’anti-art’, but has effectively and transformatively contributed to the contemporary world of art as it is known today. Furthermore, the Dadaists created a new way of looking at the elements of graphic design and permitted the work to find elevation to the level of fine art. Typography and photomontage are two of the primary contributions that Dadaism made to the world of graphic design. As one now looks at the way in which letters are arranged in advertising and marketing programs, it is easily understood that Dadaism concepts influenced graphic design theory. With the new understanding of meaning that was beyond the visual representation, graphic concepts were given a new way of being understood through Dadaism. Client Last Name 6 Works Cited Apollinaire, Guillaume, Ann Hyde Greet, and S. I. Lockerbie. Calligrammes: poems of peace and war (1913-1916). Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1991. Arntson, Amy E. Graphic Design Basics. Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2007. Elger, Dietmar, and Uta Grosenick. Dadaism. Koln: Taschen, 2004. Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood. Art in Theory, 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2003. Heller, Steven, Louise Fili, and Dan Nadel. Stylepedia: A Guide to Graphic Design, Mannerisms, Quirks, and Conceits. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2006. Hollis, Richard. Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920- 1965. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Wood, Paul, and Steve Edwards. Art of the Avant-Gardes. Open University art of the twentieth century series, v. 2. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press in association with the Open University, 2004. Read More