After the destruction of World War I, the world was in upheaval. The shock set in about the waste of the war. Throughout Europe, graveyards and memorials were put in order to commemorate the dead. In culture, there were radical changes. Students in AP Euro are learning about the movement called DADA, which means "ridiculous" or "nonsensical." It reflected the enormity of the death toll and the destruction of the war--one could not make sense of it. It criticized the war profiteers, the moral decay, and the physical destruction of the "Great War."
DADA artists painted, sculpted and created seminal images that seem bizarre or ridiculous. I went to a major DADA exhibit in 1978 in London, England. I didn't quite understand what I was seeing, but I will always remember the bizarre images.
Here's a painting by George Grosz, whose art depicted this troubled time. Grosz grew to admire America and eventually left Germany before Hitler's full domination of his homeland.
