Bauhaus
Art at the service of industry The Bauhaus was both a school and a movement in Germany founded by Walter Gropius in 1919. Gropius maintained a utopian vision of unification between fine art (such as painting) and craftsmanship (such as woodworking). This daring new design philosophy attempted to place both types of artists on equal footing and combine their disparate skills in the pursuit of the ultimate art form. As it evolved, Bauhaus worked hand in hand with the growth of industry, training its artists to meet the new modern challenge of designing for mass production. Bauhaus pottery, furniture, sculpture, and architecture emerged in a style known for its clean lines and simple, geometric shapes.
THE ROOTS OF BAUHAUS
History and politics paved the way for the Bauhaus movement. Here are some of the key factors that art historians deem influential to the movement:
The fall of the German monarchy after World War I brought freedom from censorship. Thanks to this new sense of freedom, the art world was open to new experiments.
The notion that art could be the perfect marriage of form and function
was one of the foundations of the Bauhaus school of thought, but it was not a new concept. The English designer William Morris had been a firm believer in the concept several decades earlier during the nineteenth century.
The German architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus school in 1919. Bauhaus (which translates to “house of construction”) was more than an abstract philosophy of art: It was the name for a new school of design — the first of its kind — in Weimar, Germany. In Gropius’s Proclamation of the Bauhaus, he delivered the school’s mission statement: to create a collaborative society of crafters, each skilled in areas as diverse as architecture, pottery, painting, and sculpture. To Gropius, the beauty of art lay in its usefulness and its relevance to daily life as well as its visual appeal.
FOUNDING PHILOSOPHY OF BAUHAUS
The German architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus school in 1919. Bauhaus (which translates to “house of construction”) was more than an abstract philosophy of art: It was the name for a new school of design — the first of its kind — in Weimar, Germany. In Gropius’s Proclamation of the Bauhaus, he delivered the school’s mission statement: to create a collaborative society of crafters, each skilled in areas as diverse as architecture, pottery, painting, and sculpture. To Gropius, the beauty of art lay in its usefulness and its relevance to daily life as well as its visual appeal.
Having seen the work of Russian and Dutch designers, Gropius taught artists that mass production did not mean the end of individual creativity but rather an artistic challenge that could deepen the significance of art in daily life. Because a great number of countries and philosophies were represented within its faculty, Bauhaus became a center of collaboration and debate regarding the role of art in modern society. The term Bauhaus evolved as well. It came to define the many clean, geometrically balanced works of art that grew out of the school’s teachings.
THE MAKING OF A BAUHAUS ARTIST
Bauhaus shaped its artists by instilling in them the skills of both fine art and design. Before students were allowed to focus on their specialized coursework, design. they were required to take an introductory course in materials, color theory, and design principles.
