Bauhaus

  At the end of World War One Walter Gropius created the Bauhaus School in Germany. The school's focus was to fuse all types of art from architecture to typography all under a single roof. The Bauhaus School was only around for about fourteen years but it left a lasting impression on art and design.

Gropius had three main ideas when he started the Bauhaus School. One was to join technology and art so they could play off of each other. The second was to bring crafting to the same level as fine art. And the last was to make it possible to mass manufacture art and designs that were created.

Bauhaus was greatly influenced by Modernism. The idea of form following function also played a huge role. The idea was that it was more important for the piece of work the artist was creating to work perfectly before it should look good. Making designs super simple and able to be reproduced on a large scale did this. 

Even though it was only around for a short period of time Bauhaus was greatly influential because of its end at the beginning of World War Two. The artists and designers that worked in the Bauhaus style all moved away from Germany to escape the war. By doing this they spread Bauhaus all over the world. 

Bauhaus became very influential on art and design because it was not like most art movements before it. Bauhaus saw the machine as a positive element instead of a negative one that could help artists and designers create works that could be viewed on the same level as fine art. The simplified look of modern furniture came from the Bauhaus Movement. Also the construction of buildings from steel and glass and having lots of open space with lots of light are ideas that started during the Bauhaus Movement and are still used today. 

Sources:

Meggs, Phillip B., and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs' History of Graphic Design. 5th ed. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Print.

Hunter, Sam, John Jacobs, and Daniel Wheeler. Modern Art. New York: Prentice Hall PTR, 2004.