Post 4

Mary Leriche

Development Of Mod Art

 

Post 4

Bauhaus is the name of a school that was located in Dessau, Germany. Gropius, who was considered the main founder of this school, was an artist working in the expressionist movement. The Bauhaus was considered one of the most influential modern buildings, providing in its educational plant a paragon of modern design and offering in its curriculum the ultimate model for the post academic “academy” (Hunter 206). Gropius had worked with another artist name Meyer before the war in a factory at Alfeld and Cologne, there they developed and expanded their own style, which Gropius integrated into the school. The Bauhaus came about during a tumultuous time in the world. During this time World War I was going on, and many different types of art styles were being developed in reaction to what many of these artists were experiencing. Since the Bauhaus was located in Germany, it was at the center of the affects of the war.

Gropius was part of many groups and met many different people who influenced him, which led to an influence of the Bauhaus school. One of the men Gropius met was named van Doesburg, and he settled for a short time in Weimar- the Bauhaus school existed in three locations over its lifespan due to political problems with the different towns it was located in during the rising tensions because of the war. Van Doesburg caused some dissension among the faculty and students but apparently influencing a stylistic shift there.

The Dessau building can be analyzed either as a nonacademic evolution by Gropius and Meyer from their prewar factories, which preserved traces of Behrens-like classicism in the midst of a progressive, innovative use of glass, or as constructive adaptation of the asymmetrical cubic assemblies of van Doesburg and his Dutch associates (Hunter 206). Both influences are apparent in the Bauhaus style. In 1928 Gropius resigned as director, turning the post over to Hannes Meyer, to devote himself to his architectural practice. The Bauhaus was not around for a long time. It began in 1919 and by 1933 the school was closed by the director due to increasing pressure from the Nazi regime.

The Bauhaus became one of the most influential movements in art and design history for many reasons. It started during a dynamic time in history in Germany, where a lot of upheaval was taking place with the Nazi regime and the strict rules that they started to place on all professions and aspects of the lives of those who lived there and in other countries that the Nazi’s controlled. The students and teachers who were at the Bauhaus during its short life were forced to flee Germany and the control of the Nazi’s, many of them came to America, where they had more freedom in creating their artwork and trying different experiments.

The Bauhaus was the first official school of art and design that had an academic system set up in that particular manner, and with the different ideas that were being taught there. To this day the Bauhaus’s curriculum is still used as a template in many colleges to teach fine arts. When the artists from the Bauhaus moved to other areas around the world they took their teachings and started their own schools, and took on new students, further spreading the ideas and styles of the original Bauhaus school, even though the school no longer existed as it once had. The artists also wrote books about the theories behind their style and those books are still used in colleges today to teach students about color theory, and art and design. The Bauhaus artists also built different architectural buildings and sites throughout America, and these places had a large impact and influence on the public, creating an interest in and helping to spread the impact of the Modern movement.

Herbert Bayer started as a student at the Bauhaus and then went on to become a teacher. He worked with posters, typography, and some architecture in his career. He fled here to America to get away from the war. His work is used a lot as an example of what the Bauhaus stood for and what its experiments entailed. The poster ‘Our Allies Need Eggs: Your Farm Can Help’ shows his experiments with san serif typography, the juxtaposition of horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines, and there is some influence from Russian Constructivism from Bayer’s use of black, white, and red color accents.

 

 

By Herbert Bayer

 

The Bauhaus located in Dessau, Germany

The above piece is influenced by the Bauhaus style in that it is reduced to one color, red, and it is a modern sculpture that explores the relationship of between static movement and the shape created by horizontal and vertical lines. The simultaneously ascending and descending stairs twist around creating and interesting dynamic shape that captures the viewers eyes, while still having a simplistic quality to its form. The Bauhaus reduced the amount of color that was used in the artwork that it created, mainly using the three primary colors, and they focused on the three forms, circle, square, and triangle...or what at first was called the sphere, cylinder, and cone. The Bauhaus artists did many experiments with horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines, and that experimental playful quality is present in this sculpture.



The Bauhaus:  For more information.

Sources:

Modern Art by Sam Hunter, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler

History of Graphic Design by Philip B. Meggs, and Alston W. Purvis
Google Images
Wikipedia