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For Beginners
Dada & Surrealism For Beginners
What kind of artists put a mustache on the Mona Lisa? Enter a urinal in an art competition? Declare their own independent republic? Hijack a ship?
Dadas!
And what happens in such a movement? With Dada, many of the artists declared their own “Pope” and continued their journey (with no destination) into Surrealism, creating burning giraffes, “amoebic” dogs, and lobster telephones – some of the most imaginative and intense works of art of the 20th Century. In Dada & Surrealism For Beginners, you’ll get a colorful overview of these two movements, and develop a sense of the turbulent, wild, and unapologetically mad mood and tone of the Dada and Surrealist movements. Whether you’re an artist, would-be artist, or someone seeking the marvelous, you’ll find the courage and originality of the movements inspiring, and you’ll gain an understanding of their long-term (and current) influences on contemporary art and culture – everything from performance art to pop art to the abandoned train ticket you find in the street.
Dadas!
And what happens in such a movement? With Dada, many of the artists declared their own “Pope” and continued their journey (with no destination) into Surrealism, creating burning giraffes, “amoebic” dogs, and lobster telephones – some of the most imaginative and intense works of art of the 20th Century. In Dada & Surrealism For Beginners, you’ll get a colorful overview of these two movements, and develop a sense of the turbulent, wild, and unapologetically mad mood and tone of the Dada and Surrealist movements. Whether you’re an artist, would-be artist, or someone seeking the marvelous, you’ll find the courage and originality of the movements inspiring, and you’ll gain an understanding of their long-term (and current) influences on contemporary art and culture – everything from performance art to pop art to the abandoned train ticket you find in the street.
- GenresArtNonfiction
180 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2007
10 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 31, 2016
Salad with AMOEBAS soaked in butter...diamonds hidden in ice; go check the frozen lake until you freeze! Gold roasted cinnamon flakes inlayed on a CRAB...and where does the SPARROW go when winter gets cold! If poor Yorick were Hamlet would Hamlet let him kiss his SKULL? (sorry - could not resist - great introduction to this important movement).
May 8, 2020
Good visual overview as the illustration makes it more about the extreme views these art movements had similar but yet different and at the same time it really explains in short creative ways why these movements were able to take form due to social economic issues and the shock of war and later the need for extreme escape in the subconscious. I find it very strange that I want to try to identify with the Dada movement as they wanted to be apart of any ‘movement’ because today everything is pigeon holed by genre or generation and everyone claims to be different yet they fit into some group. Even the most nonconformist goth emo groups look the same in dress , language and music and art. Hmmm. Surrealism I don’t think I yet fully understand as I cannot understand Dali being so full of himself yet was he being humorous or was this the translation in English? Also I recommend reading other works besides this one like the book by Salvador Dali “50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship” as it goes into extreme detail which reveals just how much a lifestyle it is to be surrealist. To life as a Dada today would be difficult because technology makes everyone on a level playing field and trying to mask yourself or be strange and random makes you just seem avant-garde which is another overused word for Art Nerd. Art Nerds are better than everyone else but they like the Emperor wearing new clothes but nude .....Instagram is Dada, TikTok is Dada. Because everyone wears a mask yet we see them holding their phones in selfies.....the idiocy is reality. Reality is Dada for that matter and Narcissism is the new Dada.
February 21, 2011
A good intro to Dada and Surrealism, more informative than the 1 book on Dada and the 5 (including 4 monographs) I read on Surrealism, because this book concentrates on the movements more than on individual voices. This gives context to later understand those voices. Before, it was more a matter of what Dali or Magritte thought, and not the ideas they took into their own expressions.
The comics format makes this book seem like a minor work and perhaps it is, but it helped me to really, “get it.” The major flaw, though, is the comics format. Most art is reillustrated by Joseph Lee rather than represented by photos of the original works. Lee has a good feel for the originals, but line illustrations of photographs and paintings are just too removed from the original to truly convey its flavor. I'm sure that budget was an issue here, but this is problem enough to bring the book down from 5 to 4 stars.
The comics format makes this book seem like a minor work and perhaps it is, but it helped me to really, “get it.” The major flaw, though, is the comics format. Most art is reillustrated by Joseph Lee rather than represented by photos of the original works. Lee has a good feel for the originals, but line illustrations of photographs and paintings are just too removed from the original to truly convey its flavor. I'm sure that budget was an issue here, but this is problem enough to bring the book down from 5 to 4 stars.
March 24, 2015
I first encountered learning about Dada and Surrealism in my grade 12 art class. I was assigned to do some research on it as everyone in the class had a different art history movement to work on. Let's just say I didn't try very hard :S I saw this book in the library, and it reminded me of that time and I thought, "why not give it a read, maybe I'll learn more than I tried to back then", and it seemed much more accessible to learn and retain that learning in a graphic novel form, and IT WAS!! So much easier! And it was really interesting to read about!! It was really cool to read and understand where the movement came about and how it really relates to me and our world now and how art is viewed and created. So yeah, I thought it was a great look into Dada and Surrealism in a concise manner. I would recommend this to any one wanting to learn a bit more about some art history.
January 18, 2017
It's neat to think that all the stupid crap that people post on the internet like memes and pop culture characters in various off-canon wonderlands can pretty much be considered a direct descendant of things like situationist art and pop-surrealism. The last bit of this book on those art movements made me realize that.
April 15, 2016
This book qualifies into the "nice try" category. In an era of information flow and with sites like Wikipedia it is probably irrelevant. And the cartoons are ugly.
December 21, 2024
1.
Duchamp was making a bold statement: Art didn’t have to come from the academy or be part of an academic study, it didn’t have to be “pretty,” and it did not have to represent anything. The artist’s eye, choosing something, made it art. (P.51)
2.
One needs to understand that this was a furious generation that had lost millions of young men, and must have been exceedingly difficult to believe in any power structures or institutions of the times. Perhaps, too, Dada meant that the young people were asserting a freedom of thought and individual expression during a time when freedoms seemed severely limited or perhaps even in danger of disappearing altogether. (P.87)
3.
Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that leads to everything. - Breton (p.118)
Duchamp was making a bold statement: Art didn’t have to come from the academy or be part of an academic study, it didn’t have to be “pretty,” and it did not have to represent anything. The artist’s eye, choosing something, made it art. (P.51)
2.
One needs to understand that this was a furious generation that had lost millions of young men, and must have been exceedingly difficult to believe in any power structures or institutions of the times. Perhaps, too, Dada meant that the young people were asserting a freedom of thought and individual expression during a time when freedoms seemed severely limited or perhaps even in danger of disappearing altogether. (P.87)
3.
Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that leads to everything. - Breton (p.118)
November 6, 2022
Good intro into Dadaism and surrealistm
This is good but I cursory introduction into the Dadaist and Surrealist art movements and their corresponding arists. Clearly written and cleverly illustrated read. I would have preferred something deeper and more scholarly.
This is good but I cursory introduction into the Dadaist and Surrealist art movements and their corresponding arists. Clearly written and cleverly illustrated read. I would have preferred something deeper and more scholarly.
October 16, 2020
Yes, for beginners, but still entertaining and has the added benefit of the graphic illustrations.
December 17, 2023
Got off to a nicely wacky--and thus thematic--start. But all that feminist stuff toward the end lent a jarringly bourgeois note to the proceedings (otherwise I'd have given the thing four stars). At least they did mention punk rock (which was after all a fairly blatant continuation of the "tradition"). If only they had mentioned The Addams Family (and for that matter, tree goats).
April 20, 2015
Fun 2hours
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews