The Bauhaus at Weimar

The Bauhaus years in Weimar were intensely visionary and drew inspiration from expressionism. Characterized by the utopian desire to create a new spiritual society, early Bauhaus sought a new unity of artists and craftsmen to build the future.

Gropius was deeply interested in architecture’s symbolic potential and the possibility of a universal design style as an integrated aspect of society. Advanced ideas about form, color, and space were integrated into the design vocabulary when Der Blaue Reiter painters Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky joined the staff in 1920 and 1922 respectively. Klee integrated modern visual art with the work of non-Western cultures and children to create drawings and paintings that are charged with visual communication. Kandinsky’s belief in the autonomy and spiritual values of color and form had led to the courageous emancipation of his painting from the motif and from representational elements. At the Bauhaus, no distinction was made between fine and applied arts. The heart of Bauhaus education was the preliminary course, initially established by Johannes Itten. His goals were to release each student’s creative abilities, to develop an understanding of the physical nature of materials and to teach the fundamental principles of design underlying all visual art. Itten emphasized visual contrasts and the analysis of Old master paintings. He sought to develop perceptual awareness, intellectual abilities, and emotional experience. Itten left the Bauhaus in 1923. The Bauhaus was evolving from a concern for medievalism, expressionism, and handicraft toward more emphasis on rationalism and designing for the machine.

In 1919, Bauhaus teacher Lyonel Feininger learned about De Stijl and introduced it to the Bauhaus community. The Bauhaus and De Stijl had similar aims. Late 1920 Van Doesburg established contacts with the Bauhaus. He desired a teaching position, but Gropius believed Van Doesburg was too rigid in his insistence on strict geometry and impersonal style. But even as an outsider Van Doesburg exerted a strong influence by allowing his home to become a meeting place for Bauhaus students and faculty. He lived in Weimar, teaching courses on De Stijl philosophy. Furniture design and typography were especially influenced by De Stijl, this influence probably supported Gropius’s efforts to lessen ltten’s role

Lyonel Feininger, Cathedral, 1919.

This woodcut was printed on the

 title page of the Bauhaus Manifesto.

Government insisted that Bauhaus mount a major exhibition to demonstrate its accomplishments. By the time the school launched this 1923 exhibition romantic medievalism and expressionism were being replaced by an applied- design emphasis, causing Gropius to replace the slogan “ A Unity of Art and Handicraft” with : Art and Technology , a New Unity”.

A new Bauhaus symbol reflected its reorientation, which was reflected in Joost Schmidt’s poster for this exhibition that combined geometric and machine forms.

Oscar Schlemmer, later Bauhaus seal, 1922.

Comparison of the two seal demonstrates how graphic

designs express ideas; the later seal connotes the

emerging geometric and machine orientation.

Joost Schmidt, Bauhaus exhibition poster, 1923.

Echoes of cubism, constructivism, and De Stij

l provide evidence that the Bauhaus became a

vessel in which diverse movements were melded

 into new design approaches. This poster shows

the influence of Oscar Schlemmer, then a master

 at the Bauhaus. The opening of the exhibition was

postponed until August, and two pieces of paper

ware pasted on with the corrected dates.

This example is the original version.