Post #7 - Option #1

            With the introduction of the Dada style artwork, many art criticisms were made, stabbing both the visual concept and the destruction of what those who claim true art was.  Surrealism closely trailing behind, also gave more of a representational aspect to the changing face of avant-garde artwork.  But what makes these two styles of art so under appreciated?  Artists at this time took a different approach in what they wanted their viewers to see.  It wasn’t about who could create the most aesthetically pleasing oil on canvas painting, or accuracy, it was more of the concept of creating something that gives more than one emotion.

            With Dada style art emerging in the early 1900’s, it was no as respected as new art styles were during the past centuries.  As a matter of fact, it was highly misunderstood.  Popular artists of Dada used form as a new outlet to express their artwork, such as Marcel Duchamp’s Bottle Rack (from page 228 in A-G).  While the normal viewer would look at this and find close to little aesthetic reasoning behind this piece, it was more of the concept of how it was performed, how the artist constructed this to be considered artistic.  While the form and content seemed to be a bit different than what previous art lovers were used to, it had its own place, through utilizing the idea of sculptures of abstract or ordinary objects.  Some artists explained it as beauty and art within the everyday things/objects.  One thing I really enjoy about the Dada era of art is the concept of emotion.  At first glance, I really have to sit down and think about everything, it is very captivating and makes you want to double look over the entire piece and each individual connection.

            On the other hand, you have another style, Surrealism, which took place after Dada art.  While Dada focused a lot on objects and how the construction of the piece captures the emotion of the viewers, Surrealism emphasizes similar traits but has a deeper sense of creating abstract or representational images/objects.  Surrealism changed the face of art by combining multiple conventional techniques to create one piece.  For example, some pieces could be mixes of paper, photography, and paint, all into one piece of art.  The method and idea of using all these techniques in just one formal piece was considered unnatural for this time and also went highly unappreciated.  Looking at the piece by Salvador Dali, Metamorphosis of Narcissus, (page 248 in A-G) it is easy to fully explain the concept of Surrealism.  The level of abstraction is highly anticipated and rules out of the normal concepts of human-like qualities or normal human practices.  It changed the concept by giving a new outlook to these pieces of work, since most of them involved sexual, violence, or sadism concepts- it gave forth a new way to perceive this style of art.

            Overall, I believe that there are many things in this world that we can consider art, even music is a form of art.  Visuals that attract the eye for the sole purpose of aesthetics is not what classifies something as art, especially since everyone sees things in a different light.  So yes, I do believe Duchamp’s work can be considered art because it is visually engaging and keeps viewers thinking about the convention and construction of what this piece makes, or how it is represented.