Trends and Movements

This blog is a response to a task assigned by Megha ma'am, Department of English (MKBU). This blog is about the trends and movement that prevailed in 20th century.

Existentialism:

Existentialism is a philosophy related to the question of existence. Finding the authenticity of life within oneself and finding individualism is the core of the Existential philosophy. Existentialism is like a type of thinking where people ask big questions about life. They wonder about stuff like why we're here, what's our purpose, and why life can sometimes seem weird or scary. Some key ideas in existentialism include feeling lost or anxious about life's uncertainties, the idea that we're free to make our own choices, and the importance of being true to ourselves and doing the right thing.

Existentialism is a way of thinking linked to some European philosophers from the 1800s and 1900s. They focused a lot on people and what it means to be human, even though they had different ideas. Some early ones were Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. They didn't like the idea that everything could be figured out with logic and were worried about finding meaning in life. In the 1900s, more big names joined in, like Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir. They all had different takes on existentialism, but they all explored what it means to be alive and make choices.

Dadaism:

Dada or Dadaism was an art movement in Europe during the early 1900s. It started in places like Zürich, Switzerland, at a place called Cabaret Voltaire around 1916. Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings started it there. It also took off in Berlin around 1917. In New York, Dadaism started around 1915, and then it became really popular in Paris after 1920. Dadaist artists and their activities continued until the mid-1920s.

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917.

The Dada movement started after World War I. Artists in this movement didn't like the logic and reason of modern society. Instead, they made art that didn't make sense on purpose. They used things like nonsense, irrationality, and protests against rich people. At first, they did performances, but later they made all kinds of art like pictures, writing, and even sounds. They used techniques like collage, sound poems, and weird sculptures. Dada artists were against violence, war, and nationalism. They also supported left-wing politics, which are more radical and far from the center. The movement doesn't have a clear origin story. One story says a German artist, Richard Huelsenbeck, randomly picked the word from a dictionary using a paper knife. Another story credits Tristan Tzara with inventing it during a meeting in Zurich. Some people think the word sounds like a child's first words, which fits with the movement's playful and absurd style. Others believe it was chosen because it doesn't have a specific meaning in any language, reflecting the movement's global nature.

Avant Guard movement:

In art and literature, the term "avant-garde" refers to new, experimental works created by artists who push boundaries and challenge traditional ideas. These artists often come up with innovative and unusual styles, which might not be accepted by the mainstream art world at first. The term comes from a military metaphor, comparing these artists to the advance guard leading the way into uncharted territory. They break away from established artistic norms and literary traditions, paving the path for new movements like anti-novel and Surrealism.

The Overthrow of the Autocracy, a Soviet avant-garde painting.

Avant-garde artists are like the forward-thinking part of society. They use their art to push for big changes in politics and society. In an essay from 1825 called "The Artist, the Scientist, and the Industrialist," Benjamin Olinde Rodrigues talked about how artists should lead the way in making society better. He said art is a powerful tool for making quick and direct changes in things like politics and how money works.

In the world of culture, avant-garde artists try new things that challenge what society thinks is normal. For example, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, artists in fields like poetry, fiction, drama, painting, music, and architecture experimented with modernism, which was all about breaking the rules and trying new ideas. This started with a movement called Dada in the 1910s and continued with groups like the Situationist International in the late 1950s to early 1970s, and then with the American Language poets in the postmodern era.

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