World War I devastated Western civilization both physically and psychologically The advancements and progressions of science and technology brought the world chaos and and destruction instead of a better world With nationalism now seen as the enemy Communism was first brought about in Russia to demonstrates a world without nations or classes that was led by the proletariat Others believed in anarchy as they sought to destroy the old world order before creating a new one Despite the rise of Communism branches around the world Fascism took the place of European politics and WWI The Germans humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles were bedazzled by Adolf Hitler Italy Japan and Spain were also under the control of fascists charismatic leaders During the political unrest in Europe America was experiencing prosperity in the post war years called the Roaring Twenties However near the end of the decade the stock market crashed on October 1929 which started the economic declined known as the Great Depression By the 1930s Franklin Roosevelt created the New Deal which created millions of jobs for workers and artists alike Dadaists The greatest influence for artists during this time was the war which was coupled with the technology science and Enlightenment rationalism that allowed for such devastation The war produced a new movement called Dadaism which was an art style which developed a nonsensical nihilistic art that attacked bourgeois values conventions and technology The goal of Dadaists were to create a new world order by destroying the old world While others accepted modernity of the Machine Age as a means to create a utopian world that existed without class others rejected it and sought to find spiritual meaning in a materialistic world However both groups used abstraction to reflect their ideas The supporters of the Machine Age used geometric and mechanical elements while those who rejected the Machine Age used organic or biomorphic elements Surrealists During this period the theories of Sigmund Freud which theorized that people shared suppressed desired and sexual energies developed a new movement called Surrealism which prevailed during the 1920s and 1930s Similar to abstract artists Surrealists strove to identify invisible realities which were rooted in mind and dreamt in the unconscious Mexican Art and African American Art This period also showed a progressive interest in racial and ethnic identity found in Mexican and African American Art Mexican muralists strove to represent the national identity associated by the native population African American artists strove to unveil the truths about their heritage and culture Both artists presented stark contradictions of images and attitudes towards non European civilizations Origins Dada New York Dada It is believed that Dada received its name at random when two German poets stabbed a knife into a French German dictionary which thus landed on the word Dada With its absurd childish and violent origins Dada became the tool used by artists to snap society out of their bourgeois and conventional thinking Beginning in Zurich in 1916 the Dada movement spread to the West and Eastern Europe as it became the foundation of 20th century artists In New York the Dada movement was centered around Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia Duchamp s Fountain became the highlight of New York Dada Labeled as an Assisted Readymade Duchamp bought a urinal turned it 90 degrees placed it on a pedestal crudely named it R Mutt a reference to the manufacture and fictional comic strip character and submitted it to the 1917 exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists Like most of Duchamp s Readymade s his work invokes the thought What is the work of art as he removes a common item from its context and places it in a new setting The Fountain is also thought of as humorous as he signs the name under R Mutt instead of his own Duchamp also questions the uniqueness of art as his Fountain can be replaced broken or lost With his unique approach to art Duchamp will later become a worldwide figure in Conceptual art Surrealism Even though Surrealism existed in spirit before 1924 it was not officially developed until Breton published his Surrealist Manifesto Breton states that Surrealism are mental actions that are performed without any thought or consciousness that is intended to express one s truest desire During this time the need to express reality through observation Dada was replaced the need to find reality in the unconscious mind Surrealism Max Ernst Die Ganze Stadt In order to develop his imagination Ernst created two device called Frottage and Grattage These two devices helped Ernst create Die Ganze Stadt The Entire City which depicts a forgotten and ruined Mayan structure being overcome by the forces of nature and time Ernst s paintings often transmit a sexual energy as well as depict a primeval forest with bird animals and frightening creatures Joan Miro Composition Joan Miro a Catalan from Barcelona created a series of abstract paintings using biomorphic and geometric forms against a minimal color field that often suggested a watery landscape or landscape One of these paintings titled Composition is made up of colleges set up on a cardboard that are cut out from catalogues with the assumption that the shape and details of the cutouts would inspire him Quasi Representational Surrealism Salvador and Magritte Rene Magritte The False Mirror Rene Magritte a member of the Surrealist circle was involved with Communism and created representational or quasi representational art Because of his Communist views he was never recognized as a true Surrealist by Breton His painting The False Mirror is a reflection of the Surrealist Manifesto as it portrays the superiority of the unconscious mind against observational reality The False Mirror depicts an extreme close up view of an eye as it reflects a blue sky however the iris is portrayed as an eclipsed sun in which the real reality lies behind it Magritte s painting further suggests that the eye only sees what s placed in front of it not the truth Salvador Dali The Persistence of Memory Besides Magritte another famous representational Surrealism was Salvador Dali Expressing themes of Freudian psychology Dali develops his work by using a process called paranoia critical The Persistence of Memory is a result of said process in which the strange and elongated figures within the composition are a response to irrational process of