Wednesday 5 February 2020

ABSURD THEATER



THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD










THE WEST AND THE EAST
I. The West
'The Theatre of the Absurd' is a term coined by the critic Martin Esslin for the work of a number of playwrights, mostly written in the 1950s and 1960s. The term is derived from an essay by the French philosopher Albert Camus. In his 'Myth of Sisyphus', written in 1942, he first defined the human situation as basically meaningless and absurd. The 'absurd' plays by Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter and others all share the view that man is inhabiting a universe with which he is out of key. Its meaning is indecipherable and his place within it is without purpose. He is bewildered, troubled and obscurely threatened.
The origins of the Theatre of the Absurd are rooted in the avant-garde experiments in art of the 1920s and 1930s. At the same time, it was undoubtedly strongly influenced by the traumatic experience of the horrors of the Second World War, which showed the total impermanence of any values, shook the validity of any conventions and highlighted the precariousness of human life and its fundamental meaninglessness and arbitrariness. The trauma of living from 1945 under threat of nuclear annihilation also seems to have been an important factor in the rise of the new theatre.
At the same time, the Theatre of the Absurd also seems to have been a reaction to the disappearance of the religious dimension form contemporary life. The Absurd Theatre can be seen as an attempt to restore the importance of myth and ritual to our age, by making man aware of the ultimate realities of his condition, by instilling in him again the lost sense of cosmic wonder and primeval anguish. The Absurd Theatre hopes to achieve this by shocking man out of an existence that has become trite, mechanical and complacent. It is felt that there is mystical experience in confronting the limits of human condition.
As a result, absurd plays assumed a highly unusual, innovative form, directly aiming to startle the viewer, shaking him out of this comfortable, conventional life of everyday concerns. In the meaningless and Godless post-Second-World-War world, it was no longer possible to keep using such traditional art forms and standards that had ceased being convincing and lost their validity. The Theatre of the Absurd openly rebelled against conventional theatre. Indeed, it was anti-theatre. It was surreal, illogical, conflictless and plotless. The dialogue seemed total gobbledygook. Not unexpectedly, the Theatre of the Absurd first met with incomprehension and rejection.
One of the most important aspects of absurd drama was its distrust of language as a means of communication. Language had become a vehicle of conventionalised, stereotyped, meaningless exchanges. Words failed to express the essence of human experience, not being able to penetrate beyond its surface. The Theatre of the Absurd constituted first and foremost an onslaught on language, showing it as a very unreliable and insufficient tool of communication. Absurd drama uses conventionalised speech, clichés, slogans and technical jargon, which is distorts, parodies and breaks down. By ridiculing conventionalised and stereotyped speech patterns, the Theatre of the Absurd tries to make people aware of the possibility of going beyond everyday speech conventions and communicating more authentically. Conventionalised speech acts as a barrier between ourselves and what the world is really about: in order to come into direct contact with natural reality, it is necessary to discredit and discard the false crutches of conventionalised language. Objects are much more important than language in absurd theatre: what happens transcends what is being said about it. It is the hidden, implied meaning of words that assume primary importance in absurd theatre, over an above what is being actually said. The Theatre of the Absurd strove to communicate an undissolved totality of perception - hence it had to go beyond language.
Absurd drama subverts logic. It relishes the unexpected and the logically impossible. According to Sigmund Freud, there is a feeling of freedom we can enjoy when we are able to abandon the straitjacket of logic. In trying to burst the bounds of logic and language the absurd theatre is trying to shatter the enclosing walls of the human condition itself. Our individual identity is defined by language, having a name is the source of our separateness - the loss of logical language brings us towards a unity with living things. In being illogical, the absurd theatre is anti-rationalist: it negates rationalism because it feels that rationalist thought, like language, only deals with the superficial aspects of things. Nonsense, on the other hand, opens up a glimpse of the infinite. It offers intoxicating freedom, brings one into contact with the essence of life and is a source of marvellous comedy.
There is no dramatic conflict in the absurd plays. Dramatic conflicts, clashes of personalities and powers belong to a world where a rigid, accepted hierarchy of values forms a permanent establishment. Such conflicts, however, lose their meaning in a situation where the establishment and outward reality have become meaningless. However frantically characters perform, this only underlines the fact that nothing happens to change their existence. Absurd dramas are lyrical statements, very much like music: they communicate an atmosphere, an experience of archetypal human situations. The Absurd Theatre is a theatre of situation, as against the more conventional theatre of sequential events. It presents a pattern of poetic images. In doing this, it uses visual elements, movement, light. Unlike conventional theatre, where language rules supreme, in the Absurd Theatre language is only one of many components of its multidimensional poetic imagery.
The Theatre of the Absurd is totally lyrical theatre which uses abstract scenic effects, many of which have been taken over and modified from the popular theatre arts: mime, ballet, acrobatics, conjuring, music-hall clowning. Much of its inspiration comes from silent film and comedy, as well as the tradition of verbal nonsense in early sound film (Laurel and Hardy, W C Fields, the Marx Brothers). It emphasises the importance of objects and visual experience: the role of language is relatively secondary. It owes a debt to European pre-war surrealism: its literary influences include the work of Franz Kafka. The Theatre of the Absurd is aiming to create a ritual-like, mythological, archetypal, allegorical vision, closely related to the world of dreams.
Some of the predecessors of absurd drama:
  • In the realm of verbal nonsense: François Rabelais, Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. Many serious poets occasionally wrote nonsense poetry (Johnson, Charles Lamb, Keats, Hugo, Byron, Thomas Hood). One of the greatest masters of nonsense poetry was the German poet Christian Morgernstern (1871-1914). Ionesco found the work of S J Perelman (i.e. the dialogues of the Marx Brothers' films) a great inspiration for his work.
  • The world of allegory, myth and dream: The tradition of the world as a stage and life as a dream goes back to Elizabethan times. Baroque allegorical drama shows the world in terms of mythological archetypes: John Webster, Cyril Tourneur, Calderon, Jakob Biederman. With the decline of allegory, the element of fantasy prevails (Swift, Hugh Walpole).
  • In some 18th and 19th Century works of literature we find sudden transformation of characters and nightmarish shifts of time and place (E T A Hoffman, Nerval, Aurevilly). Dreams are featured in many theatrical pieces, but it had to wait for Strindberg to produce the masterly transcriptions of dreams and obsessions that have become a direct source of the Absurd Theatre. Strindberg, Dostoyevsky, Joyce and Kafka created archetypes: by delving into their own subconscious, they discovered the universal, collective significance of their own private obsessions. In the view of Mircea Eliade, myth has never completely disappeared on the level of individual experience. The Absurd Theatre sought to express the individual's longing for a single myth of general validity. The above-mentioned authors anticipated this.
    Alfred Jarry is an important predecessor of the Absurd Theatre. His UBU ROI (1896) is a mythical figure, set amidst a world of grotesque archetypal images. Ubu Roi is a caricature, a terrifying image of the animal nature of man and his cruelty. (Ubu Roi makes himself King of Poland and kills and tortures all and sundry. The work is a puppet play and its décor of childish naivety underlines the horror.) Jarry expressed man's psychological states by objectifying them on the stage. Similarly, Franz Kafka's short stories and novels are meticulously exact descriptions of archetypal nightmares and obsessions in a world of convention and routine.
  • 20th Century European avant-garde: For the French avant-garde, myth and dream was of utmost importance: the surrealists based much of their artistic theory on the teachings of Freud and his emphasis on the role of the subconscious. The aim of the avant-garde was to do away with art as a mere imitation of appearances. Apollinaire demanded that art should be more real than reality and deal with essences rather than appearances. One of the more extreme manifestations of the avant-garde was the Dadaist movement, which took the desire to do away with obsolete artistic conventions to the extreme. Some Dadaist plays were written, but these were mostly nonsense poems in dialogue form, the aim of which was primarily to 'shock the bourgeois audience'. After the First World War, German Expressionism attempted to project inner realities and to objectify thought and feeling. Some of Brecht's plays are close to Absurd Drama, both in their clowning and their music-hall humour and the preoccupation with the problem of identity of the self and its fluidity. French surrealism acknowledged the subconscious mind as a great, positive healing force. However, its contribution to the sphere of drama was meagre: indeed it can be said that the Absurd Theatre of the 1950s and 1960s was a Belated practical realisation of the principles formulated by the Surrealists as early as the 1930s. In this connection, of particular importance were the theoretical writings of Antonin Artaud. Artaud fully rejected realism in the theatre, cherishing a vision of a stage of magical beauty and mythical power. He called for a return to myth and magic and to the exposure of the deepest conflicts within the human mind. He demanded a theatre that would produce collective archetypes, thus creating a new mythology. In his view, theatre should pursue the aspects of the internal world. Man should be considered metaphorically in a wordless language of shapes, light, movement and gesture. Theatre should aim at expressing what language is incapable of putting into words. Artaud forms a bridge between the inter-war avant-garde and the post-Second-World-War Theatre of the Absurd.
THE WEST AND THE EAST
II. THE EAST
At the time when the first absurd plays were being written and staged in Western Europe in the late 1940s and early 1950s, people in the East European countries suddenly found themselves thrown into a world where absurdity was a integral part of everyday living. Suddenly, you did not need to be an abstract thinker in order to be able to reflect upon absurdity: the experience of absurdity became part and parcel of everybody's existence.
Hitler's attempt to conquer Russia during the Second World War gave Russia a unique opportunity to extend its sphere of influence and at the same time to 'further the cause of [the Soviet brand of] socialism'. In the final years of the war, Stalin turned the war of the defeat of Nazism into the war of conquest of Central Europe and the war of the division of Europe. In pursuing Hitler's retreating troops, the Russian Army managed to enter the territory of the Central European countries and to remain there, with very few exceptions, until now. The might of the Russian Army made it possible for Stalin to establish rigidly ideological pro-Soviet regimes, hermetically sealed from the rest of Europe. The Central European countries, whose pre-war political systems ranged from feudal monarchies (Rumania), semi-authoritarian states (Poland) through to a parliamentary Western-type democracy (Czechoslovakia) were now subjected to a militant Sovietisation. The countries were forced to undergo a major traumatic political and economic transformation.
The Western Theatre of the Absurd highlighted man's fundamental bewilderment and confusion, stemming from the fact that man has no answers to the basic existential questions: why we are alive, why we have to die, why there is injustice and suffering. East European Soviet-type socialism proudly proclaimed that it had answers to all these questions and, moreover, that it was capable of eliminating suffering and setting all injustices right. To doubt this was subversive. Officially, it was sufficient to implement a grossly simplified formula of Marxism to all spheres of life and Paradise on Earth would ensue. It became clear very soon that this simplified formula offered even fewer real answers than various esoteric and complex Western philosophical systems and that its implementation by force brought enormous suffering.
From the beginning it was clear that the simplified idea was absurd: yet it was made to dominate all spheres of life. People were expected to shape their lives according to its dictates and to enjoy it. It was, and still is, an offence to be sceptical about Soviet-type socialism if you are a citizen of an East-European country. The sheer fact that the arbitrary formula of simplified Marxism was made to dominate the lives of millions of people, forcing them to behave against their own nature, brought the absurdity of the formula into sharp focus for these millions. Thus the Soviet-type system managed to bring the experience of what was initially a matter of concern for only a small number of sensitive individuals in the West to whole nations in the East.
This is not to say that the absurdity of life as experienced in the East differs in any way from the absurdity of life as it is experienced in the West. In both parts of the world it stems from the ambiguity of man's position in the universe, from his fear of death and from his instinctive yearning for the Absolute. It is just that official East-European practices, based on a contempt for the fundamental existential questions and on a primitive and arrogant faith in the power of a simplified idea, have created a reality which makes absurdity a primary and deeply-felt, intrinsic experience for anybody who comes in contact with that reality.
To put it another way: the western Theatre of the Absurd may be seen as the expression of frustration and anger of a handful of intellectuals over the fact that people seem to lead uninspired, second-rate and stereotyped existences, either by deliberate choice or because they do not know any better and have no idea how or ability by which to help themselves. Although such anger may sound smug and condescending, it is really mixed with despair. And when we look at Eastern Europe, we realise that these intellectuals are justified in condemning lives of mediocrity, even though many people in the West seem to lead such lives quite happily and without any awareness of the absurdity. In Eastern Europe, second-rateness has been elevated to a single, sacred, governing principle. There, mediocrity rules with a rod of iron. Thus it can be seen clearly what it can achieve. As a result, unlike in the West, may people in the East seem to have discovered that it is very uncomfortable to live under the command of second-rateness.
(The fact that mediocrity is harmful to life comes across so clearly in Eastern Europe either because East-European second-rateness is much harsher than the mild, West-European, consumerist mediocrity, or simply because it is a single, totalitarian second-rateness, obligatory for all. A single version of a simple creed cannot suit all, its insufficiencies immediately show. This is not the case if everybody is allowed to choose their own simplified models and prejudices which suit their individual needs, the way it is in the West - thus their insufficiencies are not immediately noticeable.)
The rise of the Theatre of the Absurd in the East is connected with the period of relative relaxation of the East European regimes after Stalin's death. In the first decade after the communist take-over of power, it would have been impossible for anyone to write anything even distantly based on his experiences of life after the take-over without endangering his personal safety. The arts, as indeed all other spheres of life, were subject to rigid political control and reduced to serving blatant ideological and propagandistic aims. This was the period when feature films were made about happy workers in a steelworks, or about a village tractor driver who after falling in love with his tractor becomes a member of the communist party, etc. All the arts assumed rigidly conservative, 19th-Century realist forms, to which a strong political bias was added. 20th -Century developments, in particular the inter-war experiments with structure and form in painting and poetry were outlawed as bourgeois decadence.
In the years after Stalin's death in 1953, the situation slowly improved. The year 1956 saw two major attempts at liberalisation within the Soviet Bloc: the Hungarian revolution was defeated, while the Polish autumn managed to introduce a measure of normalcy into the country which lasted for several years. Czechoslovakia did not see the first thaw until towards the end of the 1950s: genuine liberalisation did not start gaining momentum until 1962-63. Hence it was only in the 1960s that the first absurdist plays could be written and staged in Eastern Europe. Even so, the Theatre of the Absurd remained limited to only two East European countries, those that were the most liberal at the time: Poland and Czechoslovakia.
The East European Absurd Theatre was undoubtedly inspired by Western absurd drama, yet it differed from it considerably in form, meaning and impact. Although East European authors and theatre producers were quite well acquainted with many West-European absurd plays from the mid to late 1950s onwards, nevertheless (with very few exceptions) these plays were not performed or even translated in Eastern Europe until the mid-1960s. The reasons for this were several. First, West-European absurd drama was regarded by East-European officialdom as the epitome of West-European bourgeois capitalist decadence and, as a result, East European theatrical producers would be wary of trying to stage a condemned play - such an act would blight their career once and for all, ensuring that they would never work in theatre again. The western absurdist plays were regarded a nihilistic and anti-realistic, especially after Kenneth Tynan had attacked Ionesco as the apostle of anti-realism: this attach was frequently used by the East European officialdom for condemning Western absurd plays.
Secondly, after a decade or more of staple conservative realistic bias, there were fears among theatrical producers that the West European absurd plays might be regarded as far too avantgarde and esoteric by the general public. Thirdly, there was an atmosphere of relative optimism in Eastern Europe in the late 1950s and the 1960s. It was felt that although life under Stalin's domination had been terrible, the bad times were now past after the dictator's death and full liberalisation was only a matter of time. The injustices and deficiencies of the East European systems were seen as due to human frailty rather than being a perennial metaphysical condition: it was felt that sincere and concerted human effort was in the long run going to be able to put all wrongs right. In a way, this was a continuation of the simplistic Stalinist faith in man's total power over his predicament. From this point of view, it was felt that most Western absurdist plays were too pessimistic, negative and destructive. It was argued (perhaps partially for official consumption) that the East European absurdist plays, unlike their Western counterparts, constituted constructive criticism.
The line of argument of reformist, pro-liberalisation Marxists in Czechoslovakia in the early 1960s ran as follows: The Western Theatre of the Absurd recorded the absurdity of human existence as an immutable condition. It was a by-product of the continuing disintegration of capitalism. Western absurd plays were irrelevant in Eastern Europe, since socialist society had already found all answers concerning man's conduct and the meaning of life in general. Unlike its Western counterpart, East European absurd drama was communicating constructive criticism of the deformation of Marxism by the Stalinists. All that the East-European absurdist plays were trying to do was to remove minor blemishes on the face of the Marxist model - and that was easily done.
It was only later that some critics were able to point out that West European absurd dram was not in fact nihilistic and destructive and that it played the same constructive roles as East European drama attempted to play. At this stage, it was realised that the liberal Marxist analysis of East European absurd drama was incorrect: just as with its Western counterpart, the East European absurdist theatre could be seen as a comment on the human condition in general - hence its relevance also for the West.
On the few occasions that Western absurdist plays were actually staged in Eastern Europe, the East European audiences found the plays highly relevant. A production of Waiting for Godot in Poland in 1956 and in Slovakia in 1969, for instance, both became something nearing a political demonstration. Both the Polish and Slovak audiences stressed that for them, this was a play about hope - hope against hope.
The tremendous impact of these productions in Eastern Europe can be perhaps compared with the impact of Waiting for Godot on the inmates of a Californian penitentiary, when it was staged there in 1957. Like the inmates of a gaol, people in Eastern Europe are possibly also freer of the numbing concerns of everyday living than the average Western man in the street. Since they live under pressure, this somehow brings them closer to the bare essentials of life and they are therefore more receptive to the works that deal with archetypal existential situations than is the case with an ordinary Wes-European citizen.
On the whole, East European absurd drama has been far less abstract and esoteric than its West European counterpart. Moreover, while the West European drama is usually considered as having spent itself by the end of the 1960s, several East European authors have been writing highly original plays in the absurdisy mould, well into the 1970s.
The main difference between the West European and the East European plays is that while the West European plays deal with a predicament of an individual or a group of individuals in a situation stripped to the bare, and often fairly abstract and metaphysical essentials, the East European plays mostly show and individual trapped within the cogwheels of a social system. The social context of the West European absurd plays is usually subdued and theoretical: in the East European plays it is concrete, menacing and fairly realistic: it is usually covered by very transparent metaphors. The social context is shown as a kind of Catch-22 system - it is a set of circumstances whose joint impact crushes the individual. The absurdity of the social system is highlighted and frequently shown as the result of the actions of stupid, misguided or evil people - this condemnation is of course merely implicit. Although the fundamental absurdity of the life feature in these plays is not intended to be metaphysically conditioned - these are primarily pieces of social satire - on reflection, the viewer will realise that there is fundamentally no difference between the 'messages' of the West European and the East European plays - except that the East European plays may be able to communicate these ideas more pressingly and more vividly to their audiences, because of their first-hand everyday experience of the absurdity that surrounds them.
At the end of the 1960s, the situation in Eastern Europe changed for the worse. After the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, it became apparent that Russia would not tolerate a fuller liberalisation of the East European countries. Czechoslovakia was thrown into a harsh, neo-Stalinist mould, entering the time capsule of stagnating immobility, in which it has remained ever since. Since it had been primarily artists and intellectuals that were spearheading the liberalising reforms of the 1960s, the arts were now subjected to a vicious purge. Many well-known artists and intellectuals were turned into non-persons practically overnight: some left or were later forced to lea the country.
All the Czechoslovak absurdist playwrights fell into the non-person category. It is perhaps quite convincing evidence of the social relevance of their plays that the establishment feared them so much it felt the need to outlaw them. Several of the banned authors have continued writing, regardless of the fact that their plays cannot be staged in Czechoslovakia at present. They have been published and produced in the West.
As in the 1960s, these authors are still deeply socially conscious: for instance, Václav Havel, in the words of Martin Esslin, 'one of the most promising European playwrights of today', is a courageous defender of basic human values and one of the most important (and most thoughtful) spokespersons of the non-establishment groupings in Czechoslovakia.
By contrast, the Polish absurdist playwrights have been able to continue working in Poland undisturbed since the early 1960s, their plays having been normally published and produced within the country even throughout he 1970s.
It is perhaps quite interesting that even the Western absurd dramatists have gradually developed a need to defend basic human values. They have been showing solidarity with their East European colleagues. Ionesco was always deeply distrustful of politics and the clichéd language of the political establishment. Harold Pinter, who took part in a radio production of one of Václav Havel's plays from the 1970s several years ago, has frequently spoken in support of the East European writers and playwrights. Samuel Beckett has written a short play dedicated to Havel, which was staged in France in 1984 during a ceremony at the University of Toulouse, which awarded Havel an honorary doctorate.



Work cited:-

1) https://blisty.cz/video/Slavonic/Absurd.htm



      
2).    https://youtu.be/zKUGjVTEQj4





SURREALISM

General Overview

Surrealism began as a philosophical movement that said the way to find truth in the world was through the subconscious mind and dreams, rather than through logical thought. The movement included many artists, poets, and writers who expressed their theories in their work.

When was the Surrealism movement?

The movement began in the mid-1920s in France and was born out of an earlier movement called Dadaism from Switzerland. It reached its peak in the 1930s.

What are the characteristics of Surrealism?

Surrealism images explored the subconscious areas of the mind. The artwork often made little sense as it was usually trying to depict a dream or random thoughts.

Examples of Surrealism Art

The Song of Love (Giorgio de Chirico)

This painting is one of the earliest examples of Surrealist art. It was painted by de Chirico in 1914, before the movement really began. It combines a number of unrelated objects such as the green ball, giant rubber glove, and the head of a Greek statue. De Chirico was trying to explain his feelings for the ridiculousness of World War I through this painting. You can see this painting here.

The Persistence of Memory (Salvador Dali)

Perhaps the most famous of all the great Surrealist paintings, the Persistence of Memory is known for the melting watches as well as the clarity of the art. The painting gives you sense that you are dreaming and that time is irrelevant. You can see this painting here.

The Son of Man (Rene Magritte)

The Son of Man is a self-portrait of Rene Magritte. However, we can't see his face as it's covered by an apple. The painting shows a man in a bowler hat standing in front of a wall by the ocean. The sky is cloudy and, oddly enough, the man's face is obscured by the apple. If you look close enough, though, you can see the man's eyes. So perhaps he can see you. You can see this painting here.

Famous Surrealism Artists
  • Giorgio de Chirico - In many ways this Italian artist was the first of the Surrealist painters. He founded the school of Metaphysical Art which influenced the Surrealist artists of the future.
  • Salvador Dali - Considered by many to be the greatest of the Surrealist painters, Salvador Dali was a Spanish artist who embraced the idea and art of Surrealism.
  • Max Ernst - A German painter who was part of the Dadaist movement and then joined the Surrealists.
  • Alberto Giacometti - A French sculptor who was the leading sculptor of the Surrealist movement. He is most known fo forr his Walking Man sculpture which sold for over $104 million.
  • Marcel Duchamp - A French artist who became involved in both the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. He was also associated with Cubism.
  • Paul Klee - A Swiss painter who mixed Surrealism with Expressionism. His most famous paintings include Around the FishRed Balloon, and Twittering Machine.
  • Rene Magritte - Magritte was a Belgian artist who liked to challenge people's ideas on what they should see through his Surrealist paintings. Some of his famous works include The Son of Man, The Treachery of Images, and The Human Condition.
  • Joan Miro - Joan was a Spanish painter who was known for his Surrealist paintings as well as his own style and abstract artwork.
  • Yves Tanguy - Yves was a French Surrealist known for his abstract landscapes that used a limited number of colors.
Interesting Facts about Surrealism
  • The Surrealist movement was started by French Poet Andre Breton who wrote The Surrealist Manifesto in 1924.
  • Some artists today consider themselves Surrealists.
  • Surrealism means "above realism". Dadaism didn't mean anything. "Dada" was supposed to be a nonsense word.
  • The founder of the movement, Andre Breton, originally thought that the visual arts, such as painting and film, wouldn't be useful to the Surrealist movement.
  • Many artists, such as Salvador Dali, also made Surrealist films.


Work cited :- 

1) https://www.ducksters.com/history/art/surrealism.php

2) https://youtu.be/wtPBOwE0Qn0


EXPRESSIONISM

General Overview







The Expressionist movement started in Germany. These artists wanted to paint about emotion. It could be anger, anxiety, fear, or peacefulness. This wasn't a completely new idea in art. Other artists like Vincent van Gogh had been doing the same thing. However, this was the first time this type of art had been given a name.

When was the Expressionism movement?

The Expressionist movement occurred during the early part of the 1900s.

What are the characteristics of Expressionism?

Expressionist art tried to convey emotion and meaning rather than reality. Each artist had their own unique way of "expressing" their emotions in their art. In order to express emotion, the subjects are often distorted or exaggerated. At the same time colors are often vivid and shocking.

Examples of Expressionist Art

The Scream (Edvard Munch)

This painting shows a man standing on a bridge. His hands are on his face and he is screaming. The sky behind him is red and swirling. The picture expresses the emotion of a person alone in their anguish and anxiety. Munch made four versions of this picture. One of them sold for over $119 million in 2012.


The Scream
(Click image to see larger version)

The Large Red Horses (Franz Marc)

The Large Red Horses uses color and movement to express the energy and power of nature. Franz Marc often used colors to represent certain emotions; blue meant spirituality, yellow femininity, and red power and violence. He also painted a lot of pictures of horses and other animals.


The Large Red Horses
(Click image to see larger version)

Lady in a Green Jacket (August Macke)

In this painting a lady is standing in the foreground wearing a dark green jacket. She is looking sort of down and to the side. There are two couples in the background walking away from her. You get the feeling that maybe she is lonely or has lost someone recently. One of the ladies in the background has turned to look back at her, perhaps feeling sorry for her.


Lady in a Green Jacket
(Click image to see larger version)

Famous Expressionist Artists
  • Max Beckman - Beckman was a German painter who was against the Expressionist movement. However, many of his paintings are described as Expressionist.
  • James Ensor - A Dutch painter who had great influence on the Expressionist movement in Germany.
  • Oskar Kokoschka - An Austrian artist whose artwork was displayed in the German magazine The Storm when Expressionism became a true art movement.
  • August Macke - A leading member of the Expressionist group The Blue Rider in Germany, he also painted some Abstract Art.
  • Franz Marc - A founding member of The Blue Rider group, Franz Marc was one of the leaders in the Expressionist movement.
  • Edvard Munch - A Symbolist and Expressionist, Munch is best known for his famous painting The Scream.
  • Egon Schiele - An early adopter of Expressionism, Egon died at the young age of 28.
Interesting Facts about Expressionism
  • Another movement was taking place in France at the same time called Fauvism. It was led by artist Henri Matisse.
  • Groups of Expressionist artists formed in Germany. One was called The Bridge and the other The Blue Rider.
  • Many Expressionist artists also overlap into other movements such as Fauvism, Symbolism, Abstract Art, and Surrealism.
  • There was also Expressionist literature, dance, sculpture, music, and theatre.
  • Many of the German Expressionists artists had to flee Germany during World War II.


Work cited:- 

1) https://www.ducksters.com/history/art/expressionism.php

2) https://youtu.be/MLhDLL3MjSs


DADAISM




What is Dadaism, Dada Art, or a Dadaist?









Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917.
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917.

Art Movement: Dadaism

During the First World War, countless artists, writers and intellectuals who opposed the war sought refuge in Switzerland. Zurich, in particular, was a hub for people in exile, and it was here that Hugo Ball and Emmy Hemmings opened the Cabaret Voltaire on 5 February 1916. The Cabaret was a meeting spot for the more radical avant-garde artists. A cross between a nightclub and an arts centre, artists could exhibit their work there among cutting-edge poetry, music, and dance. Hans (Jean) Arp, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco and Richard Huelsenbeck were among the original contributors to the Cabaret Voltaire. As the war raged on, their art and performances became increasingly experimental, dissident and anarchic. Together, they protested against the pointlessness and horrors of the war under the battle cry of DADA.

What is Dadaism, Dada, or a Dadaist?

As a word, it is nonsense. As a movement, however, Dada art proved to be one of the revolutionary movements in the early twentieth century. Initially conceived by a loose band of avant-garde modernists in the prelude to World War I but adopted more fully in its wake, the Dadaist celebrated luck in place of logic and irrationality instead of calculated intent.
Key dates: 1916-1924
Key regions: Switzerland, Paris, New York
Key words: chance, luck, nonsense, anti-art, readymade
Key artists: Hugo Ball, Marcel Duchamp, Hans (Jean) Arp, Hannah Höch, Man Ray, Francois Picabia

Origin of Dadaism

The central premise behind the Dada art movement (Dada is a colloquial French term for a hobby horse) was a response to the modern age. Reacting against the rise of capitalist culture, the war, and the concurrent degradation of art, artists in the early 1910s began to explore new art, or an “anti-art”, as described by Marcel Duchamp. They wanted to contemplate the definition of art, and to do so they experimented with the laws of chance and with the found object. Theirs was an art form underpinned by humor and clever turns, but at its very foundation, the Dadaists were asking a very serious question about the role of art in the modern age. This question became even more pertinent as the reach of Dada art spread – by 1915 its ideals had been adopted by artists in New York, Paris, and beyond – and as the world was plunged into the atrocities of World War I.



Dadaism: Jean Arp, Constellation with Five White Forms and Two Black, Variation III, 1932, courtesy of Guggenheim.
Jean Arp, Constellation with Five White Forms and Two Black, Variation III, 1932, courtesy of Guggenheim

Advent of the Readymade

One of the most iconic forms to emerge amidst this flourish of Dadaist expression was the readymade, a sculptural form perfected by Marcel Duchamp. These were works in which Duchamp repurposed found or factory-made objects into installations. In Advance a Broken Arm(1964), for instance, involved the suspension of a snow shovel from a gallery mount; Fountain(1917), arguably Duchamp’s most recognizable readymade, incorporated a mass-produced ceramic urinal. By taking these objects out of their intended functional space and elevating them to the level of “art,” Duchamp poked fun at the art establishment while also asking the viewer to seriously contemplate how we appreciate art.

Different modes of Dadaism

As Duchamp’s readymades exemplify, the Dadaists and the Dada movement did not shy away from experimenting with new media. Jean Arp, for example, explored the art of collage and the potential for randomness in its creation. Man Ray also toyed with the arts of photography and airbrushing as practices that distanced the hand of the artist and thus incorporated collaboration with a chance. Beyond these artistic media, the Dadaists also probed the literary and performance arts. Hugo Ball, for instance, the man who penned the unifying manifesto of Dadaismin 1916, investigated the liberation of the written word. Freeing text from the conventional constraints of a published page, Ball played with the power of nonsensical syllables presented as a new form of poetry. These Dadaist poems were often transformed into performances, allowing this network of artists to move easily between media.



Hugo Ball, Cabaret Voltaire, 1916
Hugo Ball, Cabaret Voltaire, 1916

Famous Dada Artworks

1. Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917)

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp submitted a urinal to the Society of Independent Artists. The Society refused Fountain because they believed it could not be considered a work of art. Duchamp’sFountainraised countless important questions about what makes art art and is considered a major landmark in 20th-century art.



Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917

2. Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel (1913)

“In 1913, I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and watch it turn,” said Marcel Duchamp about his famous work Bicycle WheelBicycle Wheel is the first of Duchamp’s readymade objects. Readymades were individual objects that Duchamp repositioned or signed and called art. He called Bicycle Wheel an “assisted readymade,” made by combining more than one utilitarian item to form a work of art.



Dadaism example: Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1913.
Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1913

3. Man Ray’s Ingres’s Violin (1924)

By painting f-holes of a stringed instrument onto the photographic print of his nude model Kiki de Montparnasse and rephotographing the print, Man Ray altered what was originally a classical nude. The female body was now transformed into a musical instrument. He also added the title Le Violon d’Ingres, a French idiom that means “hobby.”



Dadaism example: Man Ray, Ingres’s Violin, 1924.
Man Ray, Ingres’s Violin, 1924

4. Hugo Ball’s Sound Poem Karawane (1916)

Founder of the Cabaret Voltaire and writer of the first Dadaist Manifesto in 1916, most of Ball’s work was in the genre of sound poetry. In 1916, the same year in which the published the first Dadaist Manifesto, Ball performed the sound poem Karawane. The opening lines were:

“jolifanto bambla o falli bambla
großiga m’pfa habla horem”

The rest of the poem continued much along the same lines. Though the poem could be confused with random, mad ramblings, sound-poetry was really a deeply considered method in the experimental literature. The idea was to bring the sounds of human vocalization to the foreground by removing everything else.



Hugo Ball, Karawane, 1916
Hugo Ball, Karawane, 1916

5. Raoul Hausmann’s Mechanical Head (The Spirit of our Time) (1920)

Raoul Hausmann was a poet, collagist, and performance artist, who is best known for his sculpture entitled Mechanical Head (The Spirit of Our Time). The manikin head made from a solid wooden block is a reversal of Hegel’s assertion that “everything is mind.” For Hausmann, man is empty-headed “with no more capabilities than that which chance has glued to the outside of his skull.” By raising these topics, Hausmann wanted to compose an image that would shatter the mainstream Western conventions that the head is the seat of reason.



Raoul Hausmann, Mechanical Head (The Spirit of our Time), 1920
Raoul Hausmann, Mechanical Head (The Spirit of our Time), 1920

Reception, Downfall, and Dissemination of Dadaist Ideals

The bold new approaches of the Dadaists stirred controversy within contemporary culture. Their swift break from tradition, their impassioned pursuit of a new mode of expression, and their willingness to bring the revered world of “fine art” back to a more level and egalitarian playing field through both humor and inquisitive investigation allowed Dada artists to attract both fans and foes of their work. Some saw Dadaist expression as the next step forward in the avant-garde march; others missed the significance and instead saw works, such as Duchamp’s readymades, as not art but simply their constituent objects (leading to some of the originals being relegated to the refuse pile).
Dadaism gripped audiences into the 1920s, but the movement as a whole was destined to crumble. Some, like Man Ray, found their inclinations moving into the subconscious realm of Surrealism; others found the pressures on the modern European artist too weighty to bear. The rise to power of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s dealt a powerful blow to the modern art world, as the maniacal despot sought to rout out the roots of modern art, a field he considered “degenerate.” As a result, Dada artists witnessed their works mocked or destroyed and thus chose to escape the stifling air of Europe for the more liberated artistic climate of the United States and beyond.
Thought many of these initial members scattered, the ideals of Dadaism remained alive and well among contemporary artists. In many regards, one can see the threads of Dada revived, for example, during the Pop Art era, when repurposed motifs and cultural commentaries emerging from the studios of artists such as Andy Warhol resonated with a hint of Dadaist intrigue. It was in the latter half of the twentieth century that the full impact of the Dadaist moment was realized. In addition to the two major international retrospectives dissecting the Dadaist oeuvre (one in 1967 in Paris and another in 2006 at various international venues), greater research was lavished on the comprehension and preservation of their legacy.



Dadaism: Hannah Höch, Da-Dandy, 1919.
Hannah Höch, Da-Dandy, 1919

Collecting Dada Art

Though offering a universal appeal, Dadaist works can prove a challenge to collect. Beyond issues of authenticity, it is difficult to chart or project the prices such works will achieve, a problem owed to the sheer variety of media. That being said, one can note the consistency with which Dadaist works have exceeded expectations at auction. The notable sale of Marcel Duchamp’s Nu sur nu (1910-1911) for more than $1.4 million in June 2016 doubled the estimated sales price of between $555,000 – $775,000. François Picabia’s Ventilateur (1928) sold at Sotheby’s in February 2016 for more than $3.1 million at the higher end of its predicted sales range. What this trend seems to suggest is that the interest in Dada art expression and the Dada movement is still alive and well, with collectors knowledgeable with regards to the good deals that might pop up at auction.

FAQ


What is Dadaism?

Dadaism is an artistic movement from the early 20th century, predating surrealism and with its roots in a number of major European artistic capitals. Developed in response to the horrors of WW1 the dada movement rejected reason, rationality and order of the emerging capitalist society, instead favoring chaos, nonsense and anti-bourgeois sentiment.

Who are the main Dadaist artists?

The most renowned Dada artists are Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, and Man Ray in Paris, George Grosz, Otto Dix, John Heartfield, Hannah Höch, Max Ernst and Kurt Schwitters in Germany, and Tristan Tzara, Richard Huelsenbeck, Marcel Janco and Jean Arp in Zurich.

Where did Dadaism originate?

There is some disagreement as to where Dada was founded. Many believe that the movement first developed in the Cabaret Voltaire, an avant-garde nightclub in Zurich, others claim a Romanian origin. What is clear is that there was a pan European sensibility emerging during WW1, especially during 1916, and that clear adherents the the main themes can be identified in Zurich, Berlin, Paris, Hanover, Cologne, the Netherlands and even as far away as New York.

Work cited.
1) https://magazine.artland.com/what-is-dadaism/
2) https://youtu.be/ABNwtDyx7T4
3) https://youtu.be/oB2e9CNsId4




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