inspired by the insanity of the trenches and the degradation of societal structures that had
spurred the beginning of the war. The Romanian poet Tristan Tzara – one of the founding
members of the movement – said that the ‘beginnings of Dada were not the be ginnings of
art, but the beginnings of disgust’. 4 This disgust towards the societies that had opened
Pandora’s box, in the form of the First World War, was a hugely important theme in the
creation of Dada. It rejected the art styles of the past, instead favouring the surreal and the
meaningless, whilst resisting any attempt to impose order on its myriad of styles. It
encompassed an anarchic blend of artistic creativity, however the disgust remained.
Many of its most prominent members had been deeply scarred by their service in
the trenches were left repulsed by the consequences of the war and by the indifference of
the civilian world in the post-war period. Otto Dix, a prominent artist from the movement,
being featured in the first international Dada exhibition in Berlin. Otto Dix presents this
feeling to the public with a series of etchings he produced of maimed veterans in the post-
war landscape of Germany, his 1920 etching ‘the match seller’ is the example we will be
analysing from this period of his work.
4 Museum of Modern Art, A catalyst for creativity (2022), <https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/dada/a- catalyst-for-creativity> [accessed 4 January 2024] (para. 2 of 5).
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