Dada Munch

“Dada”!  Supposedly a word without meaning, a nonsense word but all in the same instant the word has different meaning in various countries.  For instance, dada means hobbyhorse in French and goodbye in German; further, it means you are correct in Romanian.  (Dada Manifesto)

In all seriousness, personally this is the first time having come across the word dada and Dadaism.  Previous art history classes that I have partaken have not ventured into details to call it Dadaism – I came across it as simply as modern art.

“How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smack of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanized, enervated? By saying dada. Dada is the world soul, dada is the pawnshop. Dada is the world's best lily-milk soap. Dada Mr. Rubiner, dada Mr. Korrodi. Dada Mr. Anastasius Lilienstein.”  (Dada Manifesto)

            With its sing-songy almost rhyming ending of this paragraph as well as Ball’s constant continuation of “dada m’dada” whatever that means, was this guy mentally ill?  Perhaps high on drugs?  It sounds terribly more like schizophrenic ranting on the surface.  Although it’s rather kind of silly I can sort of “get the gist” of his emotions and what he wanted to convey.  Reject the social norms and order and be liberated, just say dada and forget, accept, just be whatever it is you want to be and feel at any given time.  Or maybe I’m just over-thinking it.  And who are those people that he mentioned?  Or is it just another of his play on words such as “Fuschgang” instead of Wolfgang. . .

However, the following passage I have to agree with, especially since I experienced such questions when I was a child and to my surprise, having a similar conversation with my own daughters one day when they were younger.

“Each thing has its word, but the word has become a thing by itself. Why shouldn't I find it? Why can't a tree be called Pluplusch, and Pluplubasch when it has been raining?”  (Dada Manifesto)

            Say for instance, an orange.  We associate it with a fruit, or a color perhaps, but the word orange itself is now a thing through association.  You don’t know the inner monolog I’m having as I’m writing this - I feel as though I’m getting a headache discussing this, but anyhow, one day my daughters and I were having apples in which they’ve asked, “why is an apple called an apple and not a cookie?”  The only way of interpreting to my kids were to use an association of a certain colored and shaped object, a thing, that someone at one point in history called it an apple.  I sometimes still linger on contemplating how even everyday words came to be and mean.

            In essence though, the word dada whether or not a nonsense word has now taken on a meaning and thereby relates existence and is associated as another “thing”, in which I feel that it negates the nihilistic approach – it’s to me an oxymoron; say dada to anything and everything but now dada means something. Does that make sense?  I beseech your comments, your own ranting if you please. . . or simply vent your opinion.

The expressionist artist I chose to reflect upon is Edvard Munch.  He was born in Norway on December, 1863.  Edvard Munch is best known for his painting “The Scream” a/k/a “The Cry”.  His later works did not inspire much praise as did “The Scream”.  Death of his mother in 1870 was the beginning of his familial tragedies; his sister died of tuberculosis like his mother, his other sister spent most of her life in an asylum, and his only brother passed away at the age of 30.  He began his education studying engineering, but a year later, he sought his true passion, art.  His career as an artist flourished during his time in France, although in his later years, he drank profusely, heard voices, suffered from partial paralysis and even checked himself into a sanitarium where he regained some mental consciousness and drank less heavily.  He died at his country home in Norway in 1944 leaving his greatest work “The Scream” to be sold in 2012 for $119 million. (Bio)

The Scream.  1893

Due to similarities of using dark as well as light but vivid colors and wavy brush strokes, I often confuse The Scream with Van Gogh’s Starry Night.  Using oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, Munch created four versions of The Scream.  (The Scream)

Filled with reddish crimson sky, the painting shows an indistinguishable figure holding with both hands the sides of the face with a shocked “O” as if frozen in a silent scream. Two figures are seen ambulating away from the main figure in the center who is frozen in a silent scream.  Additionally, there is couple of boats or rafts seen in the distant “light” part of the sea surrounded by darker bluish black tumultuous looking water which leads to what looks like a fierce waterfall.

The crimson sky in my opinion portrays catastrophic event which may unfold leaving much darkness and despair portrayed by the bluish black waters. This dark water is surrounding the smaller light portion which in my opinion represents the good or the “rafts” of life that few may cling on to.  The figure frozen in silent scream to me is more in shocked horror; it seems to express being alone and frightened, friends and family broken apart or drifting away lost – standing amidst a bridge do I go on? Can I go on? Or do I end it.  The bridge portrays to me a question of existence; to be and continue across or cease to exist and end falling off.  Dreary.

Melancholy.  1891

This painting was achieved with oil on canvas.  With surrealistic grayish yellowy perhaps even feeling of golden twilight sky which is reflected on the surface of the water along the beach gives a sense of gloom.  Following the shoreline, I focused on the melancholy man sitting cupping his chin. There appears to be boats along the shore on its sides and in the distance there is a couple standing on a small dock.  There is a boat afloat by the dock.  Amidst what appears to be distant forest of green which is painted darker for perspective, past the green pasture stands what looks like a barn, a farm house, or a church.

Melancholy, the painting, portrays exactly what it is titled.  The man sitting cupping his chin looking focused on something, perhaps nothing with his mind wandering in deep thoughts appears melancholy, sad, maybe even experiencing feeling of longing.  His facial expression is captured exquisitely; I could sense the sadness.  Perhaps it’s sadness of losing a loved one to another – the couple seen in the distance; the figures in black and white appear to me perhaps they’ve just wedded in the church painted white nearby.  Perhaps the melancholy man is longing for the past and the couple portrayed is actually himself in the past with his loved one.  He had lost his love, and the boats nearby that are on their sides may be portraying the insecurity of the melancholy man versus the stable, safely floating boat which is actually representing his love, his mate, his anchor.  And with her gone, he is contemplating life passing him by from present to past while revisiting the very place that held his fondest memory while perhaps sadly rejecting his life just watching life as it passes him by.

The Dance of Life.  1899

This painting of oil on canvas is vibrant with light and dark colors.  There are male and female figures, some as couples, dancing along a garden near a beach with a background of the ocean, the horizon and a bright setting sun shining on the surface of the water.  On the foreground however, there are single females on left dressed in white, and the one on the right wearing a black dress.  The girl on the left looks young.  She has what appears to be a smile with a white floral dress.  At the center, there is a couple dancing with eyes closed.  The woman in the center is dressed in red who is dancing with a man dressed in black.  With sharper rigid strokes, the older woman painted on the right wearing a black dress looks on with envy perhaps jealously at the couple in the center.

           Life isn’t a dance so what is this painting trying to convey?  My first thought was that this was a party and all people depicted in the painting were elated about something and having a ball.  However, the somber jealous look of the old woman on the right side of the painting caught my attention and I followed her gaze to the couple dancing serenely with their eyes closed in the center of the painting.  Munch uses concept of depth and time in his paintings; I realized the young girl portrayed in a white dress all over the canvas is possibly the same one in different time periods.                           The setting sun beaming reflection on the water surface in the shape of a cup portraying vibrant young woman begins the story of this painting.  The young woman is shown in different times of being courted by other men.  Until finally the young woman is painted and introduced on the left foreground portraying youthful innocence and beauty.  Then in the center, the same young woman who seemed to have matured showing sexuality since she is dressed in red is in the arms of a man who she possibly chosen as her mate.  They have their eyes closed and they appear to be content.  Then on the right side of the painting the young woman who is now old and left alone looks on longingly maybe with bitterness at herself in the past.  She has danced her life through different courtships to maturing and finding her love to losing her love; she started alone vibrant and ended alone old and bitter. The dance of "her" life; stages of her life of purity, carnal love to death?