I must study history if I study art

I've been thinking a lot lately about college, and what I want to study there. I think I have decided on a major in art history.

There are many reasons for this. I think that art history is an extremely important part of being an artist. You have to look back in order to make advances forward. I often find myself influenced by the painters, sculptors, and (of course) photographers of the past when creating my own work.

One of my favorite movements in art was the dadaism movement, which started during World War I in Zurich, Switzerland (thanks Wikipedia!). Dadaism is a mix of many different media that often expresses anti-war views, and is sort of an "anti-art" in and of itself. I think that this approach is sort of inspiring - both that it's art that has meaning (it opposes war), and that it also opposes other art forms and was something truly different for its time. I hope that I can incorporate elements of dadaism into my upcoming self-guided/capstone projects.

It isn't surrealism, it isn't abstract expressionism - it's dada.