Final answer:
The Dadaist movement believed World War I was caused by excessive rational thought, bourgeois values, and bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests. It expressed its protest through anti-art works, challenging societal norms and the culture of rationality.
Step-by-step explanation:
Dadaist Movement's View on World War I Causes
The Dadaist artistic movement emerged as a direct reaction to World War I, which ravaged Europe and resulted in a profound psychic toll on its population. The Dadaists believed that the war was the product of several societal ills. Among these, they identified excessive rational thought and bourgeois values as key contributors to the onset of the conflict. The Dadaists rejected the societal norms and standards of the time, which they saw as complicit in the war's outbreak. They expressed their protest through various anti-art gatherings, performances, writings, and artworks, aiming to subvert cultural and intellectual conformity.
The movement, characterized as 'anti-art' by figures like Hans Richter, stood in stark opposition to the traditional norms of art by disregarding aesthetics and purposely seeking to offend. It directly challenged the bourgeois nationalist and colonialist interests, which were seen as the main causes of the war. Celebrating irrationality, Dada drew from a disgust with the war's reliance on machine efficiency over humanity, critiquing life, governments, and capitalism through its radical and disruptive creative expressions.
Dada's stance on WWI is historically significant as it reflects the disenchantment of intellectuals with the culture of rationality that had been dominant since the Enlightenment, highlighting a loss of confidence in prior cultural principles. The movement, thus, was a formative force in the history of modern art, influencing later avant-garde movements such as Surrealism and Social Realism.