Glossary Term: Dada
"Dada"—a French word for "hobbyhorse"— was chosen randomly for this art movement. During a meeting of young artists and war resisters in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland, they stuck a paper knife into a French-German dictionary and selected the word it pointed to. They felt "dada" was a good fit for their art movement, which emphasized protest activities, despair regarding World War I, and distaste for what they thought were the bourgeois values of the art of the time.

Dada art was nihilistic, anti-aesthetic and a reaction to the rationalization, rules and conventions of mainstream art. Many Dada artists considered their work to be anti-art or art that defied reason. They felt one purpose of their art was to enrage, as well as engage, their audiences. For example, Marcel Duchamp "improved" the Mona Lisa by painting a copy and adding a mustache. He also signed his name on a snow shovel and called it art. Some well-known artists of this period were Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Francis Picabia.

Here are some examples of works produced during the Dada movement.

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