World War I changed art

Henri Mattisse, The Dance -- primal joy (1910)

The Roofs of Collioure, riot of color (1905)

Fountain, Duchamp 1917 -- what exactly is worthy of being called Art?

The Spirit of Our Time, Hausmann -- head with stuff stuck on

George Grosz, Blood is the Best Sauce (1919)

Grosz, A Winter’s Tale & Beauty Thee Will I Praise

“Dada Manifesto”, 1918 Tristan TzaraDada; knowledge of all the means rejected up until now by the shamefaced sex of comfortable compromise and good manners: Dada;

abolition of logic, which is the dance of those impotent to create: Dada;

of every social hierarchy and equation set up for the sake of values by our valets: Dada;

every object, all objects, sentiments, obscurities, apparitions, and the precise clash of parallel lines are weapons for the fight: Dada;

abolition of memory… Dada;

. . . Freedom: Dada Dada Dada, a roaring of tense colors, and interlacing of opposites and of all contradictions, grotesques, inconsistencies: LIFE.”

Tzara, “To make a Dadaist Poem” (1920):

Take a newspaper.

Take some scissors.

Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your poem.

Cut out the article.

Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them all in a bag.

Shake gently.

Next take out each cutting one after the other.

Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.

The poem will resemble you.

And there you are—an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.