How was the Dada movement a response to World War I?

Answer 1

a quick note first: Persiphone, the Nude Descending the Staircase was not a Dada painting: it was futurist, and was meant to express something: movement
now to the question:
Dada movement focused on the random, on the absurd. It is often said that it's founder, Tristan Tzara, a Rumanian living in Paris and his friends created poetry by cutting up pieces of paper and randomly picking up words from the pile to construct a piece of art. However, if you look at Hans Arp (my personal favorite from the buch, both a poet and a painter and sculptor), his poems do have a meaning, despite of evoking unreal situations, strange verbage, yet they are still very pertinent to human existence, the human condition, although they are very humorous or sardonic at times.
Dada was not about "nothing" or "fragmentation": dada movement was about absurdity, absurdity of the human existence and the absurdity of art and more than anything, it was meant to shake the middle classes, to alert them to the absurdity of their life of their perception of art.
And that was their response to WWI: pointing out the absurdity of many a human activity, the absurdity and randomness of life. That was a direct result of their experience as a war stricken generation: the war is absurd. And yet people go back to their lives and rebuild them and the society: and that is absurd, too.
Also, personally, I think it was a rebellion against an organized, well oiled machinery of society, that creates war, or condones it, in the least. They wanted to play, like children do, and wanted to show that play was subversive to the middle class moral that breeds patriotism and sacrifice, that makes war possible. Their games with words, paint, were meant to shock society into thinking, to change their attitudes towards the world.
I think they were trying to show that organized society, strict rules lead to mental death where institutionalized violence such as war is possible, whereas controlled chaos opens flood gates to creativity and makes world a more fun place, full of surprises, where instant art is available to anyone (I sincerely believe the magnetic poetry kits you can find in stores are their legacy :))...

Answer 2

Dada World War 1

Answer 3

The Dada movement showed art that was "discombobulated" and confusing. It was a result of the world being confused and afraid of a future now marred by a world war - a war in which thousands died on battlefields in a single breath as a result of mustard gas. Suddenly we had new ways to mass murder and the world lost its innocence. The Dada movement reflected that. Nude Descending a Staircase showed a fragmented woman torn apart into individual motions, fragmented like the world. Simple objects were heightened to the status of art, the result of people looking at the world a new way -- uncertain of the future. The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock reflected much the same emotions poetically. The world moved into a period of modernism and has never moved back since. Pax - C

Answer 4

Dadaism is anti-art, anti-hero, anti-values, anti-everthing. World War I was savagely brutual, 1.4 million French soldiers were killed, and all reason and morals were lost. Toward the end, the Germans were shelling French historical monuments simply to show hatred. The English officers also showed animalistic brutuality toward the Germans by using toxic gas. Dada was a response to all that. The Dadaist painted then threw away the art to show the lose of humanity forever.

Answer 5

Are you having people do your homework?