Belle Epoque and Dadaism in the Modern Culture

Lee Byung Soo

doi:10.21049/ccs.2013.33..171

The article is a research about the Belle Epoque era and Dadaism in the modern culture as a whole and separate. The years from 1890s to 1914, is known as the Belle Epoque era, in which the European continent including France had developed the climax of the modern culture after the Renaissance. At the same time, it was the period where the postmodern developments were being spread,leading to the present days. Moreover, the main ideologies in art that led to the cultural advancement of the time were impressionism, cubism, art nouveau,evolutionized painting category, symbolism and futurism. It was a literature category that was maintained to present Dadaism and surrealism. Dadaism began since the magazine, Bulletin Dada was published, originating in 1916 by Tristan Tzara of Zurich, Switzerland during the WWI. The extreme motto that the Dadaists supported was a contradiction, as they had to dissolve from their own art movements and expression techniques. However, until Andre Breton introduced ‘Manifeste du Surrealisme’ in 1924, the "Dada group" had a tremendous influence in France as an epicenter and rejected the modern cause and art that continued during the time, thus attempting its dissolution. First, they rejected the ideology, ethics and customs of rationalism from the previous system and demonstrate an anarchical and anti-bourgeoisie characteristic. They also reject the French lucid thoughts and the artistic techniques. They strongly emphasized on their motto “The idea is created from the mouth”, while reframing from the philosophical ideology and at the same time, attempting to express the psychical unconsciousness. Second, the most important catchphrase that the Dadaists supported was the theory of negation. The question “Why do you write?” connotes the negative consciousness about the artistic value and the stereotyped method of the preexisting writing and drawing. Third, the Dadaists bring forward a radical query about all of the former esthetic and morals, and reveal an admirable resistance spirit. They emphasized on the slogan “Dada, means nothing” and insist on ‘the anti-literal Dada, anti-artistic Dada, anti-musical Dada’. The Dadaist movement manifested their resistant spirit and the new artistic spirit through the publication of <Dada 1, 2, 3>, <Sic>, and most importantly through the magazine <Literature>. Fourth, the Dadaists embodied the volume, density, and quality into an image through the auto-technical, cubistic writings and drawings. They ignored the fixed form of arrangements, verses, and rhymes of a poetic diction. The Dadaists utilized an unfamiliar and inversed expression method of applying the combination of the size of print, or capital letters and lowercase letters, even combining printed and handwritten writings. As presented, the auto-technical and cubistic characteristic of expressing the auto-psychical ideology into writing is called as the radical aesthetic and moral and can be considered as the most essential cause of the Dadaists’ avant-garde features. As a conclusion, Dadaism demonstrated dual characteristics of consuming the nutritive elements of the modern culture through the most powerful resistance and liberation of the artistic movement of the Belle Epoque era, where at the same time, it deconstructed the modern art. By revolting against the former grounds and expression techniques, and dominating the era with the new artistic spirit, their resistant actions were artistic movements that symbolized the dissolution of the modern times. Moreover, the Dada’s expressionism and resistance of saying “There’s nothing” can be evaluated as postmodernity’s initiative of outweighing the modern history and opening the door for new period of nowadays.

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