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Cubism, Dada and Surrealism
Cynthia Noble
Key Concepts: Cubism (page 1)
Historical correspondences: early – mid-20th-century, Subjectivity,
World War I, Psychology (Freud and Jung), Einstein and relativity,
Capitalist critiques
• The Cubists were influenced by the Post-Impressionist return to form and especially
Cézanne’s strategy of revealing the underlying geometric solids in nature. The subject
matter is depicted from multiple perspectives simultaneously and may even be repeated
throughout the composition.
• In the Analytic period, the first phase, the cubists adopt Cézanne’s interest in seeing and
revealing the underlying forms in nature and venture even further into abstraction. They do
so by gradually eliminating the illsion of space, i.e. they reject the traditional one- or towpoint linear perspective and also by eschewing naturalistic color. This results in a
deconstruction of the subject matter to the point that it is barely recognizable.
• In Synthetic Cublism, the seoncd phase, the forms are simplified into larger planes and color
is allowed to re-emerge. The subject matter becomes recognizable again, although still
non-naturalistic. This is due to a process of building the images from its parts, as in collage
and assemblage.
• A number of new styles emerged in direct response to Cubism, including Orphism, Futurism,
Suprematism and De Stijl.
Key Concepts: Dada and Surrealism (page 2)
• Dada is an early 20th-century art movement that emphasized individuality and irrational
instinct.
• With a definite political agenda, Dada artists were anti-war and anti-bourgeois, and created
works that challenged the conventions of art and society.
• Dada art tended to be iconoclastic and highly conceptual. The ideas and actions were more
important than creating substantive objects or a rich visual culture because they wanted to
avoid making traditionally beautifully objects that could be commercially consumed or
would serve as propaganda for the powerful.
• Surrealism was the successor to Dada in opposing the rationalist tide of post-World War I
art. Dissatisfied with the playful nonsense of Dada, the Surrealists wanted to make
something more programmatic out of Dada’s desire to free human behavior.
• The Surrealists developed an interpretation of Freud’s theory that the human psyche is a
battleground where the rational, civilized forces of the conscious mind struggle against the
irrational, instinctual urges of the unconscious. They believed that happiness lies in freeing
and expressing personal desires. Therefore, they used word games, dream analysis, trances
and other ways of altering one’s state of consciousness to discover the larger reality or
“surreality” that lay beyond the narrow notions of what is real.
• The Surrealist works did not share a style but rather beliefs about the creative process.
Nevertheless, the work is often marked by uncommon juxtapositions of objects and/or
events and is often relatint upon very naturalistic techniques that are re-pruposed.
Image List: Cubism, Dada and Surrealism
Edvard Munch. The Scream (Expressionism/Symbolism)
Paul Cézanne. Bay at Marseilles, Seen from L’Estaque, 1885 (Post-Impressionism)
Georges Braque. Houses at L’Estaque, 1908 (Cubism)
Henri Matisse. Le Bonheur de Vivre (The Joy of Life (Expressionism), 1905-06
Pablo Picasso. Study for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907 (Cubism)
Pablo Picasso. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907 (Cubism)
Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, 1910 (Analytic Cubism)
Pablo Picasso. Glass and Bottle of Suze, 1912 (Synthetic Cubism)
Piet Mondrian. The Red Tree, c. 1909 (Post-Impressionism)
Piet Mondrian. Flowering Apple Tree, c. 1912 (Cubist-influenced De Stijl)
Piet Mondrian. Composition No. 10: Pier and Ocean, 1915 (Cubist-influenced De Stijl)
Piet Mondrian. Composition Blue, Red, Yellow, c. 1925 (Cubist-influenced De Stijl)
Umberto Boccioni. States of Mind: The Farewells, 1911 (Futurism)
Marcel Duchamp. Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912 (Cubism/Futurism)
Marcel Duchamp. Fountain, 1917 (Dada)
Hugo Ball reciting the poem “Karawane,” 1916 (Dada)
Salvador Dali. The Persistence of Memory, 1931 (Surrealism)
John Heartfield. Have No Fear—He’s A Vegetarian, 1936 (Dada/Surrealism)
Assignment:
Picasso said, “Academic training in beauty is a sham. . .The beauties of the
Parthenon, Venuses, Nymphs, Narcissuses are so many lies.” How did Picasso
subvert the classical notions of beauty?
Choose a Cubist painting by Picasso upon which you will base your writing. Be sure
that your arguments are rooted in the “visual facts” of the painting, i.e. a visual
analysis.
Reading:
Gleizes and Metzinger, “Cubism”