"Dada is a state of mind... Dada is artistic free thinking... Dada gives itself to nothing... ."

Formal Definition: A western European artistic and literary movement (1916-23) that sought the discovery of authentic reality through the abolition of traditional culture and aesthetic forms.

Dada was an art movement that was ostrasized from the world of art as it swept through the world like war sweeping thoughout nations. Dadaism brought about everything new: new ideas, new materials, new directions, and new people. Dada had no uniform characteristics as many other movements in the arts have. Dadaist art can be interpreted by each person how they want to see or read it. Dadaism brings out feelings and emotions in each person dependent upon what he or she is going through at the time.

Art historians who are professionally trained to analyze the styles of art movements and periods have been continually baffled by the contradictions and complexities Dadaism poses towards itself. All those who attempt to analyze the Dadaist movement, to figure out it's breadth and depth all seem to come up short. The meaning and content go far beyond tha which can be analyzed by a trained professional.

Dadaism is often mistaken as a myth due to the outrageous and ridiculous ideas put into the art, however it was very real. Dadaism was never expected to last forever, the Dadaists lived in the moment and for the moment, and so did the spirit of Dada. This beautiful form of art is no longer widely practised throughout the world, yet it is still greatly apreciated by many.

An anti-art movement? According to its proponents, Dada was not art — it was anti-art. For everything that art stood for, Dada was to represent the opposite. Where art was concerned with aesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics. If art was to have at least an implicit or latent message, Dada strove to have no meaning — interpretation of Dada is dependent entirely on the viewer. If art is to appeal to sensibilities, Dada offends. Perhaps it is then ironic that Dada is an influential movement in modern art. Dada became a commentary on art and the world, thus becoming art itself.

Dada and nihilism The artists of the Dada movement were disillusioned by art, art history and history in general. Many of them were veterans of World War I and were cynical of humanity after seeing what men were capable of doing to each other on the battlefields of Europe. Thus they were attracted to a nihilistic world view (they thought that nothing achieved by mankind was worthwhile, not even art), and created art in which chance and randomness formed the basis of creation.

The basis of Dada is nonsense. With the order of the world destroyed by World War I, Dada was a way to express the confusion felt by many people as their world turned upside down. There was not an attempt to find meaning in disorder, but rather to accept disorder as the nature of the world. Many embraced this disorder through Dada, using it as a means to express their distaste for the aesthetics of the previous order and carnage they believed it reaped. Through this rejection of traditional culture and aesthetics they hoped to destroy traditional culture and aesthetics.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dadaism http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/Dadaism/dadaism.html http://www-camil.music.uiuc.edu/Projects/EAM/Dadaism.html