Bauhaus Films

by Byron Johnson

The Bauhaus was a transformative art and design movement founded in Weimar, Germany, in 1919 by architect Walter Gropius. The movement aimed to foster collaboration between teachers and students through design studios and workshops, breaking traditional boundaries between fine and applied arts. In 1925, the school moved to Dessau and then to Berlin in 1932 before being shut down under pressure from the Nazis in 1933. Despite its closure, Bauhaus’s influence persists, as its clean, geometric design shapes modern architecture, design, and art worldwide.

The Bauhaus style is defined by its rigid angles, with materials such as glass, steel, and masonry arranged to emphasize simplicity and functionality. Often seen as austere or impersonal, this architectural style focused on form following function and embraced mass production, leading to buildings with an “unadorned” look devoid of class structure or historical ornamentation. This approach has profoundly impacted the design of everyday structures, from homes to office buildings, offering a democratic design language that is accessible and widely adaptable.

As an all-inclusive center of artistic and cultural instruction, Bauhaus offered various subjects and techniques. Notable instructors included Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Oskar Schlemmer, and László Moholy-Nagy. Klee’s teachings covered theory, painting on glass, and tapestry, while Kandinsky focused on abstract composition and large-scale painting. Schlemmer and Moholy-Nagy contributed significantly by teaching innovative methods in metal and plastic work, theater, ballet, photography, typography, and publicity.

Initially, the Bauhaus aesthetic leaned toward Expressionism, which later evolved into a more precise and geometric approach. Meanwhile, in Holland, a complementary movement known as De Stijl (Dutch for “The Style”) emerged, inspired by artists such as Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, Bart van der Leck, Gerrit Rietveld, and Georges Vantongerloo. Like Bauhaus, De Stijl emphasized pure geometry and sought to unify fine and applied arts. These movements have had a lasting influence on modern art and design.

In 1938, Oskar Fischinger created the experimental stop-motion film An Optical Poem, which exemplified the Bauhaus and De Stijl ideals of connecting visual art with music. By suspending hundreds of colored paper shapes on invisible wires, Fischinger meticulously filmed each frame and synchronized the imagery with Franz Liszt’s 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody. The film, intended to convey the interplay between music and abstract shapes visually, was described as a novel scientific experiment, reflecting Fischinger’s dedication to exploring the relationship between sound and visual form.