At the turn of 20th century, the relationship between art and society was changing rapidly. Several art movements emerged, with artists strongly believing that the main goal of art was to influence and change status quo. This change was caused and influenced by several issues, such as rapid technological development, development of science, philosophy or photography, crucial cultural and political changes, first world war, etc. In this paper, I will discuss the aim and the effect of three important 20th century movements that are integrally related to the growth and development of Modernism in the early 20th century: dada, surrealism and futurism, analyzing their manifestos and works of art, how they challenged their modernity and what impact did they have on latter development of art.
The first art manifesto of the 20th century was introduced by Futurists in Italy in 1909. Before that time, the manifesto was almost exclusively a declaration with political aims. The intention of different artists adopting the form, therefore, was to indicate that they are employing art as a political tool, addressing wider issues such as the need for revolution, problems of political system and/or society, freedom of expression, etc. Moreover, it was not uncommon for manifesto writers and other members of the movements of the early 20th century to also be politically active.
Futurist leader – Marinetti was one of the young intellectuals and artists who actively opposed Italian government’s policies and stability, preferring radical vision and nationalism instead of pragmatic compromises. Futurist Manifesto, written by him, initiated an artistic philosophy, Futurism, that was a rejection of the past, and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, youth and industry: “It is in Italy that we are issuing this manifesto of ruinous and incendiary violence, by which we today are founding Futurism, because we want to deliver Italy from its gangrene of professors, archaeologists, tourist guides and antiquaries.” (Futurist Manifesto, Marinetti, 1909). Futurists, excited and astonished by their new environing world of motion, emotion and industrialization, overcoming technological changes and progress, tried to represent their reality which they saw as infinite possibilities of progress in their art: “Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.”(Futurist Manifesto, Marinetti, 1909)
Futurist artists and writers were significantly affected by the philosophy of Nietzsche, especially Nietzsche’s view about the role of an artist in a modern reality and in the development of the society. As they thought that Italian people were encountering intellectual poverty and lack of morality, believing that changing Italian society on the bases of new philosophical premises was urgently required, they tried to achieve this change in society with their art.
Typical signs of Futurism in artists’ paintings was avoidance of subject matter and concentration on style, use of strong lines and radiant colors, representing movement, speed and progress in paintings, dissolution of physical bodies, “For art can only be violence, cruelty, injustice.”(Futurist Manifesto, Marinetti, 1909). Futurists tried to put the observers in the center of the picture rather than showing them set scenes and mere objects. Marinetti in his Manifesto was strongly opposing everything old, claiming that it was the waste of strength and emotions to admire past, already exhausted and useless. Instead, what he proclaimed was revolt, danger, strength, anarchy, extreme destructiveness. “We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.”
As Marinetti was strongly promoting strength and force, he was also advocating the idea of war, seeing in it esthetic beauty and modernity: “We want to glorify war — the only cure for the world — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice… we, the young, strong and living Futurists!”(Futurist Manifesto, Marinetti, 1909)
In 1910 Futurist painters published 2nd futurist manifesto - Manifesto of the Futurist Painters . While repeating Marinetti’s basic ideas, they engaged themselves with representing modern world, and gave more insights about their esthetic direction: painting modern world in constantly dynamic movement and complementary colors while trying to force the spectator into the center of painting instead of placing objects in front of them. Manifesto of the Futurist Painters even more emphasized the distinction between old and modern, promoting annihilation of the old and creation of the new, rejecting traditions and academicism: “With our enthusiastic adherence to Futurism, we will: Destroy the cult of the past, the obsession with the ancients, pedantry and academic formalism; … Support and glory in our day-to-day world, a world which is going to be continually and splendidly transformed by victorious Science.” (Manifesto of Futurist Painters, 1910).
To capture their modern reality, starting with painting urban life and workers’ social conditions, Futurist painters then moved to trying to represent the ideas of speed, sound and movement with formal representation and style instead of subject matter. Moreover, what was interesting to them was the changed character of the concepts of memory, space and time due to the rapid global technological progress. We can clearly see this shift in the paintings of Giacomo Balla, one of the first pre-futurist (later strongly futurist) painters. In his painting of 1904 “A worker’s day”, representing urban life and workers, is already seen some traits of Modernism. In his relatively latter painting – “Street Light” (1907), inspired by one of the first electric street lamps, is vividly seen the impact of technological changes on human consciousness. In his paintings of 1913 on the theme of abstract speed, observing and trying to capture the ideas of movement and speed of cars, his art becomes fully Futuristic.
Another important Futurist painter – Umberto Boccioni developed his own style of painting and tried to represent the different traces of memory, intuition and movement while adapting multiple viewpoints. In his four paintings of 1911, “The Laugh” and a triptych “States of Mind”, he used vibrant contrasting colors to exaggerate emotions and strong visible lines to represent memory flashes and impressions.
Thus, the most important aspect of early 20th century’s modern art movement - Futurism, was to represent changed technologically environing dynamic world in motion and emotion, using strong vivid colors, believing that by that they went towards a truly dynamic representation of the world.
Unlike Futurism, latter modernist movement, Dada, was strongly anti-war. Launched in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland (neutral during World War I), by poets and artists such as Tristan Tzara, Hugo Ball and Hans Arp, the Dada movement was a direct reaction to the slaughter, propaganda and inanity of World War I. Neutrality of Switzerland in the war allowed artists to escape nationalistic escalation and reject military industries. They grouped in Zurich for “Cabaret Voltaire”– mix of art, performance, poetry, etc. on which, as one of the important Dadaists, Marcel Janco recalls, artists began “shocking common sense, public opinion, education, institutions, museums, good taste, in short, the whole prevailing order”. In 1916, on public Dada soiree, Hugo Ball read the first Dada Manifesto written by him, attacking the basis of fundamental order of society – distorting rationality and constructing nonsense that had nothing to do with contemporary culture: “How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, Europeanized, enervated? By saying dada. Dada is the world soul…” (Dada Manifesto, Hugo Ball).
Tristan Tzara, one year later, in 1917, wrote second Dada Manifesto which was published in 1918 and is considered as one of the most important dada writings. In his Manifesto, attacking rationality and progress in order to get to the roots of bourgeois society, Tzara declares: “I destroy the drawers of the brain and of social organization: spread demoralization wherever I go and cast my hand from heaven to hell, my eyes from hell to heaven, restore the fecund wheel of a universal circus to objective forces and the imagination of every individual.”
Independent groups linked by common ideas sprung up soon afterwards in New York, Berlin and elsewhere. Dada in Berlin began after World War I in 1918 being overly political critique because of Germany’s involvedness in the war. Activities and art of German Dada were more political and social, with much stronger anti-governmental and anti-military protest.
As for Dadaists in New York, “Portrait of an young American girl in a state of nudity” (1916), the painting of a French artist, Francis Paccabia, one of the most important New York Dadaists, created with the level of irony towards American society, can vividly express general opinion of New York Dadaists towards modernity and technological progress. Creating contrast between the title of the painting and actual object represented – metallic machine, Piccabia is mocking American people’s faith in technological progress, making disgusted comment on their general excitement by the technological changes and even attaching erotic charge to this notion of technology. Being geographically distanced from the war, Dada in New York was less of a political nature. Instead, driven by a sense of irony, they were mostly mocking Americans’ admiration of modernity/technology and their superficiality (almost opposite position to that of Futurists).
These various groups did not share universal style, but rather were connected by their rejection of idealism, stale artistic and intellectual conventions and modern society’s embrace of ‘rationalism’ and ‘progress’.
“I am against systems, the most acceptable system is on principle to have none” (Dada Manifesto, Tzara). Opposite to Futurism (though futurist artists also changed their views during World War I), Dada movement condemned the nationalist and capitalist values that led to the cataclysm of the war and employed several performances and provocations to jolt the rest of society into self-awareness. The absurdity of Dada activities created a mirror of the absurdity in the world around them. “The absurd has no terrors for me, for from a more exalted point of view everything in life seems absurd to me.” (Dada Manifesto, Tzara) Dada was anti-aesthetic, anti-rational and anti-idealistic. “I know that you have come here today to hear explanations. Well, don't expect to hear any explanations about Dada. You explain to me why you exist. You haven't the faintest idea. …You will never be able to tell me why you exist but you will always be ready to maintain a serious attitude about life.” (Dada Manifesto, Tzara, 1916)
The word ‘dada’ itself represented the very nature of the movement. In Dada Manifesto written by Hugo Ball, the author explains: “I want the word where it ends and begins. Dada is the heart of words. Each thing has its word, but the word has become a thing by itself. Why shouldn't I find it? Why can't a tree be called Pluplusch, and Pluplubasch when it has been raining?” (Dada Manifesto, Ball)
Dada is essentially a counter-movement. Using nonsense and irony, it attacks more than just mere traditions and past (as did Futurism other avant-garde movements). Dada finds itself upon mockery, mocking the world around it – which has truly gone mad in a war, and even mocking itself as part of modernism - mocking the claim of modernism that art will/can change people’s lives. Otto Dix with his painting “The Match Seller” is clearly expressing the ironic comment on modernism’s claim, showing to the world the meaninglessness of rebelling against social conditions. “The beginnings of Dada were not the beginnings of an art, but of a disgust..; As Dada marches it continuously destroys, not in extension but in itself … Dada is a state of mind … Dada applies itself to everything, and yet it is nothing, … Like everything in life, Dada is useless.” (Dada Manifesto, Tzara).
Trying to get outside of any logical sequence, Dada claims to have ultimate freedom: “People who join us keep their freedom. We don’t accept any theories” (Dada Manifesto, Tzara). This freedom is bound up in the rejection of theories, not because they are not good theories, but because they are theories at all. “Some people think they can explain rationally, by thought, what they think. But that is extremely relative. There is no ultimate Truth” (Dada Manifesto, Tzara). Then what does an art movement have left? Art, because, as Tzara writes, “if life is a bad joke… the only basis of understanding is: art.” Dada rejects everything and is forced to exult art, not for art’s sake, not anything intrinsic or extrinsic about art, but because art is all that is left. The result is an art of destruction – “Every man must shout: there is a great destructive, negative work to be done. To sweep, to clean.” (Dada Manifesto, Tzara).
Thus, Dadaists were trying to fight against logic, order, objectification. They were criticizing modernism for its belief that it was able to change society. With their artworks, they tried to destroy the necessity for art to have the meaning in order to be valuable. Typical example of this kind of artwork is one of the most important New York Dada artist’s, Marcel Duchamp’s scandalous ready-made – an urinal, signed "R. Mutt" and titled Fountain, submitted in 1917. This work was supposed to be presented on the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists. Even though the rules of this exhibition stated that all works of the artists who paid the fee would be accepted and exhibited, the “Fountain” was rejected by the committee. This fact resulted in a big debate about what could have been considered as art and what - not. “For everything is relative. What are the Beautiful, the Good, Art, Freedom? Words that have a different meaning for every individual. ... There is no common basis in men’s minds.” (Dada Manifesto, Tzara). Dada artists, including Duchamp, were arguing that art is not the object itself but the understanding that art can have different meaning. What matters is “the intensity of a personality transposed directly, clearly into the work; the man and his vitality; the angle from which he regards the elements and in what manner he knows how to gather sensation, emotion, into a lacework of words and sentiments.” (Dada Manifesto, Tzara). The article “Richard Mutt Case”, published in “the Blind Man”, tried to prove that what mattered in creating the artwork was artist’s intentionality, so no matter what was the object on which an artist worked, if he “created a new thought for that object” (“The Richard Mutt Case; The Blind Man), it was a work of art. Duchamp, with his best-known ready-made “The Fountain” successfully provoked this shift in focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation.
“Try to be empty and fill your brain cells with a petty happiness. Always destroy what you have in you. On random walks. Then you will be able to understand many things. You are not more intelligent than we, and we are not more intelligent than you.” (Dada Manifesto, Tzara)
After the war, many of the artists who had participated in the Dada movement began to practice in Surrealism. Surrealism was officially inaugurated in 1924 when the writer André Breton published the Manifesto of Surrealism. Similar to Dada, Surrealism was characterized by a profound disillusionment with and condemnation of the Western emphasis on logic and reason. However, Breton wanted to create something more programmatic out of Dada’s activities. Consequently, Surrealist works were bound up with the psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud relating to the irrational and instinctual drives of the unconscious.
Two Surrealist Manifestos were issued by the Surrealist movement, in 1924 and 1929. They were both written by André Breton. In first Surrealist Manifesto (1924), he defines Surrealism as: “Pure psychic automatism by means of which one intends to express, either verbally, or in writing, or in any other manner, the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, free of any aesthetic or moral concern.” Breton's apprehension of Surrealism is the juxtaposition of "two distant realities" united to create a new one. The manifesto was written with a great deal of absurdist humor, demonstrating the influence of the Dada movement which preceded it. The text concludes by asserting that Surrealist activity follows no set plan or conventional pattern, and that Surrealists are ultimately nonconformists: “Surrealism, such as I envisage it, declares our absolute non-conformity clearly enough that there can be no question of bringing it before the court, at the trial of the real world, as a witness for the defence. It would, on the contrary, only serve to justify the utter state of absent-mindedness that we hope truly to achieve here below.” (First Surrealist Manifesto; Breton).
Through the use of unconventional techniques such as automatism and frottage, Surrealist artists attempted to tap into the dream-world of the subliminal mind. Some of these artists include Joan Miro, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Max Ernst and Salvador Dali. Determined to enter into their unconscious, they abandon themselves to the currents of their own mind, riding down the rapids of their interior world, trying to force this inner world into the outer world – surrealist art. In the painting “Accomodation of Desire”(1929) by Salvador Dali, the artist is trying to represent liberation of unconscious desire, creating image that is very real, but not rational. Dali, being very interested in the notion of unconscious desire, is working on investigating it in dreams.
Second Surrealist manifesto, published in 1929 by Andre Breton, excommunicated Surrealists reluctant to commit to strongly Marxist collective action, excluding significant artists such as Dali and Masson, though their works of are still labeled as Surrealist.
Surrealist art is highly identifiable for an observer, but not rational. Because of the juxtaposition of images that make no sense together, the only way for the picture to make sense is unconscious way. Surrealism was also much influenced by Existential philosophers who were trying to discover the borders of reality and possibility, being and time. By destroying logic and giving freedom to imagination, Surrealist artists tried to do the same with their art. “this imagination which knows no bounds” and will not much longer allow itself to be kept “under the reign of logic” (Surrealist Manifesto; Breton).
In “The Potato” (1928), Surrealist artist Joan Miro’s emblematic painting, the observer can see signs of almost automatic drawing, used by Surrealist artists to overturn conventionality and incorporate thought of unconscious with conscience, leading to expanded reality - unconscious and conscious worlds being both real. While the painting clearly depicts the figure of the artist , the woman that takes full focus in this art work, the art work is created by putting together different sketches that have forms that are abstract but recognizable, creating in sum an image that can not be read rationally. Miro’s use of bright and vibrant colors creates a scene that is far from reality, and at first glance looks like a cartoon in the shapes of the figures, although, when looking close, this painting looks very well put together and designed to make the public think in depth about it. The abstract but recognizable forms that the artist uses creates tension between the objects being there in the painting and not being there, promoting again Surreal reality and even more, artist’s contemporary philosophical thinking about existence. “If a bunch of grapes contains no two alike, why do you need me to describe this grape among others, among all others, to make a grape worth eating? Our brains are dulled by this incurable mania for reducing the unknown to the known, to the classifiable. The desire for analysis wins out over feeling.” (Surrealist Manifesto, Breton, 1924).
International in scope and diverse in artistic output, Futurism, Dada and Surrealism were artistic, literary and intellectual movements of the early 20th century that were instrumental in defining Modernism. These avant-garde movements shaped the direction of art in terms of social creature and society as the result of art practices (the interrelated notions of art and society influencing, shaping and creating each other). The most intimately interlinked were Dada and Surrealism; the former championed by Tristan Tzara and the latter by Breton in poetry and Salvador Dali (even though exterminated from the official Surrealist group) in painting. Both the art-groups were chiefly experimentalist and avant-garde. They emphasized nonsense over sense, gave predominance to the Unconscious, used a lot of structurally chaotic methods like collaging with newspaper cuttings to create poetry. In its intention to undermine established values, the oppositional stance of both Dada and Surrealism, and the spirit of Futurism, served as important precursor to late 20th century artistic developments in conceptual art, performance art or post-modernism, Neo-Dada, Nouveau Réalisme or Institutional Critique while still inspiring artists today.
Sources:

Marinetti, The Futurist Manifesto (1909);
Manifesto of Futurist Painters (1910);
Hugo Ball, Dada Manifesto (1916);
Tristan Tzara, Dada Manifesto (1917);
Andre Breton, First Surrealist Manifesto (1924);
Andre Breton Second Surrealist Manifesto (1929);
Richard Humphreys, “Futurism”;
Wood, “Varieties of Modernism”,
“The Richard Mutt Case”, The Blind Man.