The Bauhaus and the Articulation of a
“Shared Visual Language”
for Art and Industry
Nan O’Sullivan
Masters of Architecture
“The most famous experiment in art education of the modern era”
Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus in Weimar
“The most famous experiment in art education of the modern era”
“The most radical and sustained effort yet made to realise the dream
cherished since the industrial revolution, not merely to bring visual
art back into closer tie with everyday life, but to make it the very
instrument of social and cultural regeneration.”
Marcel Franciscono, Walter Gropius and the Creation of the Bauhaus in Weimar
The Bauhaus provides a critical
benchmark in the history of modern
design education and in the efforts
of early modernists to define a
‘universal visual language.’
“The German Threat”
Pre World War One
“The German Threat”
Pre World War One
“Now here is an aspect of something new and
unexpected. Germany positions itself as a
champion of modernism, creating nothing in the
domain of fine arts to prove itself so, but on the
other hand, revealing itself almost without
warning to be colossal in power, in determining
and achieving in the domain of the applied arts.”
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret.
Étude Sur le Mouvement d’art Décoratif en Allemagne 1912
Deutsche Werkbund
1907
Henry van de Velde
1863- 1957
–
present day
Hermann Muthesius
1861-1927
“ An alliance of the most intimate enemies”
Hermann Muthesius
Walter Gropius
1883 –1969
Walter Gropius
1883 –1969
“Let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen without the
class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between
craftsmen and artist! Let us desire, conceive and create the
new building of the future together. It will combine architecture,
sculpture and painting in a single form and will one day rise
towards the heavens from the hands of a million workers as a
crystalline symbol of a new and coming faith.”
Walter Gropius. Bauhaus Manifesto 1919
Trailblazers
William Morris
1834-1896
John Ruskin
1819 - 1900
Henry van de Velde
1863- 1957
Peter Behrens
1868-1940
Education
Johann Pestalozzi
Friedrich Froebel
True knowledge can be
achieved only through
learning “the simple
A visual language of
simple objects.
1746 - 1847
elements of the laws of
form ” with an alphabet of
lines, shapes and angles.
1782 - 1852
Haptic and visual
senses are paramount
to language.
Learning
. through play.
Franz Cizek
1865 - 1946
A child’s art
expresses pure nature.
Nurturing creative
expression exceeds
formal instruction.
Franz Cizek
1865 - 1946
A child’s art
expresses pure nature.
Nurturing creative
expression exceeds
formal instruction.
John Ruskin
1819 - 1900
“A student must attain
the innocence of the eye,
a sort of childish
perception of these flat
stains of colour, as they
merely are, without
consciousness of what
they signify.”
John Ruskin.
Elements of Drawing
Franz Cizek
1865 - 1946
A child’s art
expresses pure nature.
Nurturing creative
expression exceeds
formal instruction.
John Ruskin
1819 - 1900
“A student must attain
the innocence of the eye,
a sort of childish
perception of these flat
stains of colour, as they
merely are, without
consciousness of what
they signify.”
John Ruskin.
Elements of Drawing
Innovative education + Innocent eye = preliminary course at the Bauhaus
Johannes Itten
1888 - 1967
New personal experiences and discoveries would lead to a “new way of seeing”
Principles of the Vorkurs
Feeling and Thinking
Intuition and Intellect
Expression and Construction
Colour Theory by Itten
Vogelthema
Johannes Itten 1918
Principles of the Vorkurs
Feeling and Thinking
Intuition and Intellect
Expression and Construction
Colour Theory, Itten
Gymnastics leading to studies of rhythmic form
and movement
Vogelthema,
Johannes Itten, 1918
Analysis of the “Old Masters”
Balance
Balance
Asymmetry
Balance
Balance + Asymmetry
Asymmetry
Balance
Rhythm/movement
Balance + Asymmetry + Rhythm
Asymmetry
Repetition
Balance
Rhythm/movement
Balance + Asymmetry + Rhythm + Repetition
Asymmetry
Repetition
Balance
Hierarchy
Rhythm/movement
Balance + Asymmetry + Rhythm + Repetition + Hierarchy
Asymmetry
Repetition
Balance
Hierarchy
Rhythm/movement
Balance + Asymmetry + Rhythm + Repetition + Hierarchy = Composition
Gropius
build
Itten
compose
Gropius
build
Itten
compose
Moholy-Nagy
integrate
Lázsló Moholy–Nagy
1895 - 1946
“Reality is a measure of human thinking. It is the means by which
we orientate ourselves in the universe. This reality of our century is
technology: the invention, the construction and the maintenance of
machines. To be a user of machines is to be of the spirit of the
century.”
Lazalo Moholy–Nagy 1922
2D
3D
Universal Visual Language
Itten had introduced an analytical process of understanding two dimensional
composition that assimilated seamlessly into the three dimensional forms created at the
Bauhaus workshops
Metalwork - Marianne Brandt (1924)
“Tea Infuser”
Painting- Kandinsky (1924)
“Quiet Harmony”
Sculpture - Moholy–Nagy (1921)
“Nickel Sculpture”
Awareness of Space
Haptic
awareness
Pestalozzi
Compositional
understanding
Spatial
discovery
“Wassily chair”
Itten
Moholy-Nagy
Marcel Breuer
The Bauhaus School in Dessau. A timely formalisation of Gropius’s Bauhaus ideologies.
Here he composed and constructed form – containing and contained by space.
(opened 1925)
What will become of the universal visual language?