Dadaism, or more commonly known as Dada, was a war influenced movement in the early 1900s that sparked a whole set of different artwork and artistic freedom. This greatly affected the visual and literal arts and gave birth to many new artistic theories still used in modern artistic movements. Zurich, Switzerland was where it all started and paved a new route for artistic endeavors towards anti-war and anti-conformities within the conventional art scene.

Man Ray

The Dada art movement period made it possible for many of the most unusual and unconventional art techniques to surface and create something the world had not seen. The artworks created seemed to ignore religion, government and all arranged forms of conformity that often limited art in periods prior to Dada. Abstract thoughts and seemingly random influential muse for poetry, prose and other writings was commonplace and made it possible for surreal automatism to take place, nearly breaking all of the known rules of writing which eventually created newer writing styles used today.

Dada goes hand in hand with pop art of the later 1900s as many of the artistic movements involved used the power of influence and called to question what anything really was and what the definition of art really meant. The Dada philosophical beliefs, methods and mentality continue to this day and cannot simply be forgotten. Both Europeans and Americans alike joined the Dada movement and its legacy spread to even more countries soon enough.

Some of the techniques that were developed within the Dada period are Collage, Photomontage, Assemblage and Ready-mades, which are still used today. Collage incorporated the use of many different pieces of paper or similar materials to form still life or highly meaningful pieces that dealt with life.

Photomontage techniques were used to create unique artwork with existing prints and photos in various formats to create artwork. The Assemblage was basically the same as Collages, but in a three dimensional format that had meaningful or simply meaningless messages pertaining to war or other fashions of daily life. Ready-made artwork was usually taking an already manufactured item and using it in a way that alters normal use slightly, signing it then calling it artwork.

The Dada period has definite footholds in society and has even sparked interest in more recent artistic collections. Many famous people spend millions of dollars just to have a piece of historical artwork in their private collections. Literary arts as well as visual arts are of great importance and much has been done to preserve the most notable art pieces.