Bauhaus. 1919-1933. Michael Siebenbrodt

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СКАЧАТЬ of all artistic principles in building, in combination with manual trades and workshop as educational fundamentals were the focal point of its aims and objectives. The Masters, Journeymen and Apprentices of the Bauhaus were to be closely in touch with industry and public life and strive for friendly relationships amongst themselves outside of classes as well as in them, with theatre, lectures, music and “ceremonious merriment at these gatherings.”[2]

      The first Bauhaus signet, the “matchstick star man”, which led student Karl Peter Röhl (1890–1975) to win the student competition, was a special symbol of this departure from convention. It its centre is an abstract line drawing of a man with his arms raised, consciously following Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452–1519) Vitruvian Man in a circle and square, but reminiscent at the same time of the Old Germanic double-rune “man-woman” with a circular head, which with its black and white halves represents the highest degree of abstraction of the Chinese yin and yang. This Bauhaus man carries a pyramid as the antique symbol of the unity of society, art and religion. He is orbited by the sun as a swastika, the Buddhist symbol of love, and the moon and stars – world cultures and world religions form the humanistic backdrop for the Bauhaus’s visions of the future.

      The foundation of the Bauhaus coincided with the first elections in the newly founded Free State of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach on 9th March 1919, and the formation of a new provisional republican government by the Social Democrats (SPD) and the German Democrats (DDP). In February and March, Gropius travelled to Weimar on several occasions for negotiations and gained support for his appointment as Director and the new name Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar (State Bauhaus in Weimar) from the Fine Arts Academy staff. On 1st April 1919, the Weimar Lord Chamberlain’s office signed the contract with Gropius and also agreed to the institution’s renaming on 12th April.

      In the merger of the former Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Arts and Crafts, Gropius had to take on the remaining professors of the Academy of Fine Arts, Richard Engelmann (1868–1957), Otto Fröhlich, Walther Klemm (1883–1957) and Max Thedy (1858–1924). The appointment of the new international faculty of avant-garde artists took all of four years. In 1919, Lyonel Feininger, Gerhard Marcks (1889–1981) and Johannes Itten (1888–1967) joined, then one year later Georg Muche (1895–1987). In 1921 came Paul Klee (1879–1940), Oskar Schlemmer (1888–1943) and Lothar Schreyer (1886–1966), then Wassily Kandinsky in 1922 and László Moholy-Nagy replacing Itten as late as 1923.

      As early as the autumn of 1919, Bauhaus opponents in Weimar – conservative craftsmen, academic artists, members of the right-wing conservative educated class and politicians – formed the Free Association for City Interests and publicly attacked the “… Spartacist and Bolshevist influences” in the Bauhaus. At one such meeting the Bauhaus master student Hans Groß lamented the lack of a nationalist, “German-minded” leadership personality at the Bauhaus. The “Groß Case” led not only to the withdrawal of more than a dozen students and a complaint to the state government against the Bauhaus by forty-nine right-wing conservative Weimar citizens and artists, but also to the first mobilisation of Bauhaus supporters in the Deutsche Werkbund and the Berlin Working Council for the Arts. Walter Gropius countered the pamphlet against the Bauhaus by Emil Erfurth, chairman of the nationalist Bürgerausschuss (Citizens’ Committee), with his own leaflet in the spring of 1920, supported by the Ministry of Education and the Arts.

      On 30th April 1920 eight previously independent Thuringian free states joined together to form the district of Thuringia with Weimar as the capital. On 20th June the first state elections took place, which resulted in a coalition between SPD, USPD (Independent Social Democratic Party), and DDP led by August Fröhlich. The Bauhaus was put under the control of the Ministry of Public Education, Art and Justice. On 9th July Gropius gave a speech in front of the Thuringian parliament and participated as an expert in budget discussions. He took advantage of the opportunity to present the development of the Arts Academies into the Bauhaus, to reject political attacks and to lobby for the expansion of the completely insufficient Bauhaus budget.

      Lyonel Feininger, Cathedral of the Future, title page for the manifesto and programme for the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, 1919

      Walter Gropius, Manifesto and programme for the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, 1919

      Former Weimar Academy of Fine Arts professors Thedy and Fröhlich had been pushing for the secession of the painting classes from the Bauhaus since early 1920, and were joined by Engelmann and Klemm in October. They achieved the re-foundation of the academically oriented Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Kunst (State Academy of Fine Arts) in Weimar on 4th April 1921, which was established adjacent to the Bauhaus in the rooms of the former Fine Arts Academy.

      This secession enabled long-overdue new appointments at the Bauhaus in 1921, and at the same time helped the Bauhaus make its mark. The printing, bookbinding, sculpting and weaving workshops had become operational in 1919; the furniture, pottery, metal and stained glass painting workshops followed in 1920. In January 1921 the first Constitution of the Staatliche Bauhaus in Weimar was published, which remained in effect (after a revision) until 1925.

      In February, Johannes Itten had designed a habit-like Bauhaus uniform, which was not officially introduced. In the summer he visited the Zoroastrian Mazdaznan Congress in Leipzig and introduced its teachings at the Bauhaus together with Georg Muche, among other things including vegetarian food in the Bauhaus cafeteria. Alongside this American sect, which referred to the ancient Persian teachings of Zoroaster (Zarathustra), various life reformation movements, the Wandervogel youth movement, Socialist ideas and itinerant Christian preachers all played a role and tried to fill the void left by war and revolution.

      This spiritual and practical reconstruction and formation phase is often called the expressionist phase of the Bauhaus. The five Bauhaus print portfolios, probably the most important graphics production of the Bauhaus, seem to fit into this “expressionist” picture. New European Graphic Arts showed fifty-six works by forty-nine participating artists from six countries as well as all the Bauhaus Masters. In reality, it reflects the pluralistic image of the European avant-garde from German expressionism to Italian futurism and Russian constructivism, as well as the Dutch De Stijl.

      Karl Peter Röhl, The first Bauhaus seal, “Matchstick Star Man”, 1919

      On the Way to [Becoming] the Modern Academy of Design: The 1921–1922 Formation Phase

      In 1922, Walter Gropius reorganised the Bauhaus Masters’ duties. In particular, Johannes Itten’s many duties and power were reduced; following Klee and Schlemmer, Moholy-Nagy took over the metal workshop in 1923, Klee took over the stained glass painting workshop, Kandinsky, after an interlude by Schlemmer, took over the mural-painting workshop, Muche the weaving and Gropius himself the furniture workshop. At the same time, the Masters’ Council, the Bauhaus’s highest leadership body, discussed intensely the idea and structure of the Bauhaus. Klee provided a sketch showing the Bauhaus as a globe with a sun motif in the centre. The earth’s axis bore two triangular pennants reading “propaganda” and “publisher” and referred to the Bauhaus Masters’ media strategies, which decisively influenced the corporate identity and international aura of the Bauhaus with their Bauhaus print portfolios, Bauhaus books, the Bauhaus magazine, and with exhibitions and lectures.

      The globe’s outer ring listed the preliminary lessons, the preparatory course, as an important pedagogical invention for the preparation for regular studies in the Bauhaus workshops, which were described with material terms such as wood, stone, metal, etc. in the sun’s rays. The workshop work was linked in this sketch to the artistic and natural science technical courses, such as nature studies, colour and composition theory, construction theory, material studies or material and tool theory. The СКАЧАТЬ