March 9 History of GD Chapter 13

Throughout the beginning of modern art era, transportation, technology, monarchy, and motion pictures were coming into play. Many styles such as cubism, futurism, dada, surrealism, expressionism, and photography affected this movement. Cubism was led by Pablo Picasso and characteristics include geometric shapes, fabrics, and the classical norms for the human figure are broken. It involves a strong relationship with the process of human vision. Collage began to appear during Cubism. Another movement was futurism, which was art that vocalized enthusiasm for war, machine age, speed, and modern life. Harmony was rejected as noise was brought into this art form. Another movement is the dada movement, which focused on the reaction against WWI and rebelled against the horrors of the war. Instead of claiming they were creating art, they claim they were mocking and defaming a society gone insane. This movement founded photomontage to create posters that were of political figures and cartoons. Surrealism was the next movement that began in Paris around 1924. It was a way of thinking, feeling, and a whole different way of life that focused completely on making images appear real. After that movement, the expressionism movement entered the realm. Color, drawing and proportions were exaggerated and distorted. The people felt empathy for the poor and social outcasts. It was a time when people expressed how they felt and addressed problems of the human condition and environment. Through photography in the modern art movement, solarization was developed and opened up a new window to photography that effected history.

One movement that I find very interesting is the dada movement. People were starting to act out by creating posters and designs that mocked important people and ideas. They thought that society had gone insane and they created posters to show how insane these people are. They even drew a mustache on Mona Lisa, which caused the public to be outraged. It was a time that aloud people to stand up and vocalize how they feel about the problems they were facing.

One question I have in regards to the dada movement is did the people who created these posters that mocked society at the time get in trouble? How did government officials deal with these people? Did they have freedom to speech however they wanted at the time?