The Influence of WW1 on Art

The World War I brought much disillusionment and disenfranchisement to many nations. The artistic community had been largely influenced by the war that had changed the perception of the aesthetic nature of art. Among the new forms of art that appeared during WWI was Dadaism and Surrealism that were largely a way of protesting against what was described as reason and logic of bourgeois capitalists, which were the factors behind the outbreak of the war. This paper attempts to describe the influence that WWI had on art with regard to Dadaism and Surrealism.
The WWI caused much disentanglement and dispersal of artists who had convened in Paris. Because of the war, the artists ran to different parts of the world and started expressing their protests against what they considered as bourgeois capitalists who were responsible for the war in what came to be known as Dadaism. Surrealism also came up as a way of expressing subconscious mind of the artists by depicting dreamlike features. The horror of the war was expressed through art to illustrate the frustration faced by the art community (Reed 1).
According to Hopkins (37), WWI created a new epoch in art as well as new sensibilities and aesthetic responses. Dadaism was described as being anti-artistic in nature because it was widely considered as a negative reaction by artists to the horrors of WWI. In a way, art was shaped by WWI as it also attempted to define what war is. Calhoun (12) observes that WWI was the reason for the emergence of Surrealism and Expressionism which created nightmarish visions and perspective which Calhoun describes as wobbly and chopped-up of human bodies which are as fractured as the splintered societies moving toward chaos and immorality.
Art was also transformed into a weapon to fight against political and capitalistic forces, which were largely seen as the cause of the war. To a larger extent, artistic expressions were laid aside as artists looked for ways to express their protest against what they termed as propaganda and grandiose nationalism being responsible for the war. In addition, WWI caused cynicism within the artistic circles against the ruling classes and planners of the war who were required to be honest and direct with their artistic expressions. In effect, art ceased to have rhetoric and euphemism. As was observed by Ernest Hemingway in his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms, art was influenced by the events of the war to the extent that abstract words like courage, glory, hollow, and honor were obscene in villages concrete names of villages and other names like those describing roads (Kleiner 13).
Apart from leading to the emergence of new forms of art, WWI also led to the development of new techniques in art that were in tandem with the new art styles. One of the reasons for the development of new techniques was the lack of time to assemble the needed material for their art. As such, techniques like collage, photomontage, and assemblage developed with new touch even though they had been used elsewhere before the outbreak of the war as observed by Orban (Orban 14).
In conclusion, WWI was a turning point in the art of 20th century. It caused a turnaround not only in terms of development of new forms of art like Dadaism and Surrealism, but also in terms of culture demolition, which was seen as an antithesis of common sense and aesthetic. The fact that the public received Dadaism and Surrealism in awe was an indication that WWI had changed the perception not only of the artists but also the public over what constituted adorable art.

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