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134 10 surrealist bridges At the end of the war, European critics were giving modern art two prognoses. In one, Picasso and Matisse heralded “two grand opposing tendencies” in modern art, an idea echoed in England by British critic Clive Bell, who said in 1920 that, even for ordinary people, Picasso and Matisse “have stood, these ten years, as symbols of modernity.”1 Anotherview,growingstrongonthecontinent,dividedupEuropeanart between two different styles of painting, the Fauvist-Cubist-Abstractionist camp on one side, and the revival of classicism, the postwar “return to order,” on the other. Another possibility was on the horizon, however, and its fountainhead would be Dada, the absurdist movement that began inconspicuously in Zurich, but which, on arrival in Paris, began to galvanize something new. Dada was far more of an attitude than a style, and accordingly, its force arose from three energetic dissenters in the arts, all of whom had plenty of caustic attitude to spare. They were Francis Picabia, Tristan Tzara (from Zurich), and a young Parisian poet named André Breton. They would launch “Paris Dada.” After a short fitful history, it gave rise to a revised version of itself, soon to be called Surrealism. No one in 1920 had figured that this Dada attitude would ultimately bifurcate modern art even more than Picasso and the traditionalists were doing already. Similarly, no one could have predicted that Marcel Duchamp would become the patron saint of Dada, though he was not a member of its organizing bands. The subversive attitude of Dada would eventually rival “significant form” as the essence of modern art, and by the end of the twentieth century, every kind of art would look rather traditional , even Picasso’s, in contrast to the Dada legacy. Although the nonsense term “Dada” had been coined in Zurich in 1916, its game plan was quietly reborn in 1918, the last year of the war, when Picabia and Tzara learned of each other. In Barcelona, Picabia had been publishing his incendiary pamphlet 391, sending it around by mail. In Zu- surrealist bridges || 135 rich, Tzara had issued his Dada manifesto, also by mail, and soon he would hear of Picabia. In Tzara’s third issue of his own incendiary publication, Dada, he declared: “Long live Picabia, the antipainter from New York!”2 Upon returning to Paris, Picabia was still in possession of sufficient wealth to do what he liked. So in January 1919, he and has wife Gabrielle traveled to Zurich to meet Tristan Tzara. Over the three weeks that followed , Tzara helped his new friend produce the next issue of 391. In turn, Picabia designed the cover for the combined fourth and fifth issues of Dada, entitled Anthologie Dada. Then Picabia returned to Paris (soon to leave Gabrielle and take up with a new mistress). Before returning home, however, Picabia had persuaded Tzara to eventually come to Paris. That same year, Picabia had responded to an anti-art survey by a new literary magazine, Littérature, which had just been founded by André Breton, an enterprising medical student-turned-radical poet. Breton wanted to revive the spirit of Alfred Jarry in French letters. As Breton mixed his poetry writing with his medical duties during the war, he envisioned himself as a “joyful terrorist,” his targets being traditional literature, logic, and morality.3 So when Picabia and Breton finally met, the former told the latter about Tzara, and the circle was complete. Picabia, Tzara, and Breton would become the early triumvirate of a new phenomenon, Paris Dada, to be born as a separate and distinct movement from Zurich Dada and Dada in Germany, both of which had blossomed, ever so briefly, during the actual war years. And as fate would have it, the two artists whom Breton most wanted to draw into his own Paris Dada circle of influence would be Picasso and Duchamp. The practical foundation for Paris Dada was established by Breton, a natural organizer. He was a unique product of the postwar experience of young poets. One result of the “call to order” in France was to produce a new wing of rebels, an avant-garde that believed their elders had gone soft. Such was the rebel-story of Breton, who had been an acolyte of Apollinaire. Before the war, Apollinaire had championed radical ideas from Rimbaud to Jarry. His Soirées of Paris had become the leading arts periodical in Montparnasse . Young poets like Breton, seeking a career advance, idolized Apollinaire . Breton served as his secretary...

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