Revolution and the Bauhaus

This week’s lecture coincided with the beginning of work on the second project, for which we chose Bauhaus as the theme, therefore the information of this lecture could especially assist in starting research for the content.

I was especially interested in Johannes Itten, as his work seemed to have a profound influence on the Bauhaus, for example, he created the colour wheel which we still use now. I also saw elements of his vibrant style of art from even before the Bauhaus, such as in his painting “Der Bachsänger”, a colourful and angular piece of work, creating depth through tone and shadow.

I also researched about Johannes Itten’s leaving of the Bauhaus school, which was because the founder, Walter Gropius brought the school towards a commercial focus when it moved from Weimar to Dessau. Itten was of a Zoroastrian faith, which caused him to feel opposed to this use of art as a means of making money, and therefore he stopped teaching at the Bauhaus.

Interestingly, the successor of Itten, Lazslo Moholy-Nagy pushed the use of technology in art. I find this intriguing, as his joining of the Bauhaus coincided with the move towards commercial art. Perhaps his skill and interest in technology was one reason for his employment, considering the importance of technology in commercial manufacturing. I decided to focus my research for the second project on these two figures, due to their intertwined timelines of work at the Bauhaus, as the fulfilled the same role at different stages, Itten’s impact on design through his colour wheel, and my interest in technological artwork.

I find it interesting how the work of Russian constructivists and the German school of the Bauhaus overlapped in their styles and principles, despite being separated by half of Europe. For example, both use a limited colour palette, in the Bauhaus, predominantly the primary colours, black and white are used, and in constructivism, mainly red, black and off-white are utilised. They also share their use of simple shapes and angular lines. Although constructivists influenced the Bauhaus, it may be possible that such ideas spread across Europe so quickly because the effects of war had caused an attitude shift of the people towards art, for example, both schools of design had a focus on function rather than pure aesthetics, which may have come from the attitude during war time, when only necessities could be afforded, but now, artists brought together aesthetic enjoyment with these necessities. In the case of the constructivists, they also used their art to question authority, perhaps in retaliation to the war caused by authority that brought destruction to Europe.

Here we can see the predominance of red in constructivist work. Intriguingly, white is used to symbolise oppression, where in most cultures of the world, it is considered a colour representing good and morality. Red is also used to symbolise the solidarity of the working class against the authoritarian upper classes.