The Dadaist Movement: The Art And Craft Movement

Mass production, industrialization and industrial design had a great impact on the arts and crafts movement as seen by the Dadaist movement whereby this movement questioned what art and craft truly is. Dada began in reaction to the outbreak of World War one. It was an “Avant Garde” (out-front) movement whose declared purpose was to protest against the senseless violence of the war.
This movement was founded b Hugo Ball, Jean Aarp and Tristan Tzara. These writers and artists who believed that a society which produced something as horrifying as the First World War was an evil society who’s philosophy and culture should be totally destroyed because it was socially and morally bankrupt. This movement challenged traditional accepted values of art.

That being said it does have a décor aspect to it that in itself can have an aesthetic appeal that alludes to some type of contemplation. Art has the ability to instruct (in terms of propaganda), entertain and mystify its viewers. The highest and purest goal in art is contemplation. One of high arts objectives is to function as some kind of spiritual and moral element and thus a common assumption is passed that high art is “edifying” and low art is “mere entertainment”, in order to bring these assumptions to fruition the crafts functionality needs to be sacrificed to achieve the ultimate goal of fine art. Art and craft have the same views of being creative however art is a form of expressing emotion and craft is a form of work that results in tangible outputs. High art is predominantly the results of innate talents and requires an emotional attachment, whereas craft requires a specific set of skills that are acquired from experience and does not require emotional attachment. High art is non-functional in its physicality whereas craft embeds itself with functionality, however the real argument here is whether or not craft can function as art? In some cases craft can be functionally beautiful, for example dating back to the 18th century architecture in the Rococo era which is classified as late Baroque, artist gave up their symmetry and became increasingly more ornate and playful, this can be seen in The Rococo Basilica at Ottobeuren (Bavaria) designed by Johan Michael Fischer, this craft/artwork is a good indication that art and craft can both be functional and beautiful with purpose and meaning behind it, in relation to style stemming from a certain time, revealing a certain social acceptance and what may have been deemed as beautiful and functional. Many artists of the 18th century take a firm stance in the belief that they will never let their materials dictate to them what defines art