The Bauhaus In Weimar Germany

The Bauhaus opened in April of 1919, in Weimar Germany, founded by Walter Gropius with the intentions of merging fine and applied arts. Gropius was inspired by nineteenth-century Arts and Crafts and Arbeitsrat movements, he disintegrated the traditional separation between applied and fine arts. The first staff members, along with Gropius, were Lyonel Feininger and Johannes Itten, whom brought a Expressionist precepts to the curriculum. Itten was an established Expressionist painter and printmaker who later became more of an administrator and favorite teacher of students at the Bauhaus. While Feininger became the director of the printmaking workshop when it was established in 1921. Other staff members include Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, Gustav Klimt, Herwarth Walden, and Wassily Kandinsky.

Faculty members like Kandinsky, Itten, and Klee’s prominent roles in the Bauhaus show their continued focus on Expressionism, even while receiving criticism from avant-garde and De Stijl artists. In late 1921 when Theo van Doesburg, a leader of De Stijl, joined

With their ties to Arbeitsrat fur Kunst, it was particularly crucial for them to disassociate from Russian Constructivism and political communism. But their apolitical work was a bit insincere consider numerous students and faculty disagreed with current politics, and wished to inspire a revolution of sorts with their work. During the winter of 1923-1924 the Bauhaus was in jeopardy, despite their efforts to create new curriculum and work on building commercial relationships. Ultimately the new ministers in power viewed that the school was connected to socialism, and worked to promptly close the school. Even with support from former rivals, the right-wing politicians swiftly cut the Bauhaus financial support causing the school to close in December of