Bauhaus

Bauhaus

The word Bauhaus mean ‘building house’. It was founded by the architect Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919. It was closed down by the Nazis in 1933. Bauhaus was a modernist art school of the 20^th century. It was formed by centuries such as Arts and Crafts movements, which had sought to level the distinction between fine and applied arts, and to reunite creativity and manufacturing. This included artists Wassily Kandinsky, Josef Albers, Laszlo Itten, architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe and designer Marcel Brever.

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

Nagy is one of the greatest influences on post war art education in the united states. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was formed by the Dadaism, Supermatism, Constructivism and debates about photography. It was Walter Gropius that invited him to the school Bauhaus in Germany. Nagy gave the course more political, experimental and technological bent. Later he moved into various fields, from commercial design to theatre set design, and also made films and worked as a magazine art director.

Johannes Itten

The Bauhaus education initially established by Johannes Itten. Johannes Itten founded an art school of his own in Berlin to train painters, printmakers, photographers and architects.

Herbert Bayer

Bayer was a teacher and even a student in Bauhaus and worked in a variety fields including paintings, sculpture, typography, advertising and architecture. After a while studying began teaching at Bauhaus first classes on typography. Herbert Bayer was head of printing workshop at Bauhaus at 25 absorbed the principles of De Stijl and Constructivism. Apart of teaching in Bauhaus he also was working as an Art Director for the Container Corporation and as an architect in both Germany and America. He also spent some time as the Art Director of the Vogue magazine’ Berlin office, that his contribution were typography and advertising. His design for typography was consisted of entirely lowercase letters. His designs show direct and simple typography, non-decorative, strong horizontals and verticals. Bayer also developed a sans-serif alphabet of lowercase letters titled “Universal”. The Universal typefaces using lines and 45 degree angles. Intended to facilitate universal communication. Made from simple geometric shapes and not looking at historical German models. He also designed architecture and posters for Aspen in Colorado. In 1959 he developed another sans serif alphabet that was called “fonetik alfabet” that contained special characters for the endings –ed, -ion, -ory and –ing.

Posters of today inspired from Bauhaus:

References:

Bauhaus Movement, Artists and Major Works | The Art Story. 2014.Bauhaus Movement, Artists and Major Works | The Art Story. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus.htm. [Accessed 02 November 2014].

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works | The Art Story. 2014. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works | The Art Story. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-moholy-nagy-laszlo.htm. [Accessed 02 November 2014].

Johannes Itten Biography - Infos - Art Market. 2014. Johannes Itten Biography - Infos - Art Market. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.johannes-itten.com/. [Accessed 02 November 2014].

Herbert Bayer : Design Is History. 2014. Herbert Bayer : Design Is History. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1920/herbert-bayer/. [Accessed 02 November 2014].

Dada

'Dada is what you can make out of yourself ' Hausmann 1968

Dada

The Dada movement was born in Europe at the time when the horror of World War 1 was being played out in what amounted to citizens front yards. It was created as a movement of protest in Zurich that began in 1916. This movement was influenced by ideas and innovations from several early avant-gardes, Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism and Expressionism its output was wildly diverse, ranging from performance art to poetry, photography, sculpture, painting and collage. Places like Berlin, Hanover, Paris, New York and Cologne were influenced by this movement. The Dada movement was arisen by the avant-garde painters, poets and filmmakers. The interest of this movement was to rebel against what they saw as cultural snobbery, bourgeois convention and political support for the war. For three years Dada’s events, including spontaneous readings, performances and exhibitions were taking place at Hugo Ball’s cabaret Voltaire. Tristen Tzara has invented the word Dada, in his Dada manifesto of 1918, even Richard Huelsenbeck said that he found that name by plunging a knife at random into a dictionary. The word ‘Dada’ also echoes the first word of a child that looks childish that appealed to the group. Typography, photomontage, negative white space, layout, letter spacing and line spacing has played a significant role in the development of communication design. The most prominent visual artist was Marcel Duchamp that joined the Dada movement and Cubism had influenced his analysis of subjects as geometric planes, while futurism inspired him to convey time and motion.

John heartfield

John Heartfield worked closely with the collegues George Grosz, Raoul Haismann and Hannah Hoch. Heartfield pioneered the method of photomontage, photographing collages assembled from magazines, newspapers and other media cuttings and printing the final works in their own political Dada publications. Heartfield used art as a weapon against the government’s authority.

Hannah Hoch

Hannah Hoch was known for her political collage and photomontage works. Hoch used images and text from the mass media to criticise the Weimar German Government. Hannah Hoch made the collage work from the inspiration of the work of Pablo Picasso. Hoch focused her critist for works such as Das schone Madchen (The beautiful girl) 1920.

Kurt Schwitters

Schwitters was best known for his collage and assemblage works in which he transformed appropriated imagery and text from print media into dynamic and layered compositions. In 1918 he began making assemblages from materials found discarded on the streets of his city. 

Posters of today inspired by Dada:

References:

Dada Movement, Artists and Major Works | The Art Story. 2014. Dada Movement, Artists and Major Works | The Art Story. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada.htm. [Accessed 02 November 2014].

John Heartfield Biography by Grandson, John J Heartfield. 2014. John Heartfield Biography by Grandson, John J Heartfield. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/helmut-herzfeld-john-heartfield/biography-german-artist-heartfield. [Accessed 02 November 2014].

Hannah Höch | 9 Artworks, Artist Biography | Artsy. 2014. Hannah Höch | 9 Artworks, Artist Biography | Artsy. [ONLINE] Available at:https://artsy.net/artist/hannah-hoch. [Accessed 02 November 2014].

Kurt Schwitters Biography - Infos - Art Market. 2014. Kurt Schwitters Biography - Infos - Art Market. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.schwitters-kurt.com/. [Accessed 02 November 2014].