Salvador Dali

Dada was an artistic and cultural movement that began during World War I in Zurich; and extended to cities like Berlin, Paris and New York City. It mainly impacted literature, graphic design, visual arts and theater. Dadaism has influenced many other artistic styles, including Surrealism and Pop Art. In fact, many artists involved with this movement later became Surrealists.

Dada was a rejection of the evils of war and the oppressive nature of conventional society. Dada artists had a contemptuous, sarcastic attitude toward traditional art forms, social values and contemporary culture. Works from this movement have been described as cryptic, irrational, playful, absurd and instictive; but that was their goal. Dada was supposed to represent the exact opposite of standardized art- the interpretation of the art is up to the viewer.

Salvador Dali and many other Parisian Surrealists were directly involved with or influenced by Dadaism.

According to Wikipedia, Marxism refers to the philosophy and social theory based on Karl Marx’s work on one hand, and the political practice based on Marxist theory on the other hand. Most forms of Marxism share a belief that peoples’ consciousness of the conditions of their lives are reflections of the material conditions of existence and the material relations people enter into in the course of their existence; an understanding of these material conditions and relations as historically malleable; an understanding of “class” as a particular position in the social relations that organize economic production; an understanding of history in terms of conflict between classes with opposing interests; a sympathy for the exploitation of workers; a belief that the ultimate interests of workers best match those of humanity in general. Main points of contention among Marxists is the degree to which they are committed to a workers’ revolution as the means of achieving human emancipation and enlightenment, and the actual mechanism through which such a revolution might occur and succeed.

The Surrealists of Paris supported and heavily influenced by Marxist Theory. Dali, although part of this circle for a time, was never interested in politics or the values of Marxist thought.

Surrealist thought emerged around 1920, partly as an outgrowth of Dada, and partly with the help of its initial principal theorist, French writer Andre Breton; the author of “The Surrealist Manifesto.”

Andre Breton ’s definitions of Surrealism:

Dictionary: Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.

Encyclopedia: Surrealism. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life.

Surrealism is a cultural, social and political movement that was developed by 20th century writers and artists. Surrealists assert that liberation of the human mind and subsequent liberation of society and the individual can be achieved by exercising the imaginative faculties of the “unconscious mind,” to the attainment of a dream-like state different from, or ultimately “truer” than everyday reality. Surrealists believe that this more truthful reality can bring about personal, cultural, and social revolution, and a life of freedom, poetry, and uninhibited sexuality.

Salvador Dali is one of the most influential artists to the Surrealist movement. Although he tackled many other artistic styles, he is most famous for his view of Surrealism.

Adherents of Surrealism thought that the horrors of World War I were the culmination of the Industrial Revolution and the result of rational thinking. Consequently, irrational thought and dream-states were seen as the natural antidote to social problems. The Surrealist diagnosis of the problem of the realism and capitalist civilization is that both utilize a restrictive overlay of false rationality, including social and academic convention, on the free functioning of the instinctual urges of the human mind.