Beauty vs. Novelty

In the aftermath of World War One the arts underwent a revolution: the goal of art changed from beauty to novelty.  Disillusioned with humanity, antipatriotic and cynical, the French Dadaists took it upon themselves to subvert the establishment, and when Marcel Duchamp succeeded in having his urinal exhibited, catalogued and eventually canonized, their project was underway. In Germany, the Expressionists deconstructed art to the level of psychological projections and emotions, and the emotions of Germans in 1918 were rage, anger, disappointment and, again, cynicism. Hence, the portraits of Otto Dix leer at us from the canvas with grotesque, imbecilic sneers.

The problem, of course, was not in depicting the dark side of life, but in artists losing their belief in the public at large. Taking a hard stance on the idea of art for art’s sake, artists developed an attitude indifferent – if not antagonistic – to the layman, shielding themselves under the aegis of novelty. By making novelty their goal, it became moot whether the public appreciated them or not. In fact, a lack of appreciation from the public served as proof of their novelty.