Bauhaus

For one of our lectures we looked at Bauhaus, which is an art school in Germany that combined art, crafts, and technology, founded by Walter Gropius. The school was famous for the approach to design that it publicised and taught. I will be looking at some Bauhaus inspired art and architecture along with how it inspired me and can contribute to my own work. 

Notes made in the lecture.

Triangle, Square, Circle: A Psychological Test (1923)

1. Fill in these three forms with one of the primary colours: red, yellow, or blue.
2. Provide an explanation for your choice of colour.

This questionnaire was circulated by Wassily Kandinsky in 1923 at the Bauhaus, asking respondents to fill in the above shapes with the 3 primary colours, red, yellow and blue. He wanted to discover a universal correspondence between form and colour. Kandinsky achieved results which supported his theoretical ideal. The equation of yellow triangle, red square and blue circle inspired numerous projects. An example would be the baby cradle (1922) with its blue circle, yellow triangle, and red square, designed by Peter Keler. Keler was a student at the Bauhaus who studied mural painting with Wassily Kandinsky.

I will be answering the questionnaire as part of a task, beforehand, I will be breaking down the choices of shapes and colours which will have an effect on my choices. I think colour can help the balance of a design and help emphasise something, something that your eye is drawn to in a design. The colour red could suggest blood and how it is associated with energy and life, I feel like it's a very emotionally intense colour as it could relate to passion and desire. Blue could relate to the sky and the sea, associated with depth and stability and producing a calming effect. Yellow, as a bright colour, it could inspire new ways of doing things which may lead to other ideas.

Looking at shapes, they can be defined as simple or complex, geometric or natural and abstract. Shapes can even combine different qualities. The use of basic shapes was used in Bauhaus and was used on many different mediums. I think triangle suggests growth, starting at the bottom and working your way to the top. Triangles can also suggest movement, as each point of the triangle are pointing in different directions, moving away from each other or heading into different directions. Circles can suggest infinity, never ending as it keeps going round in a smooth direction, they have a free sense of movement which could represent power and energy. I think circles portray a positive message, they represent life and the life cycle and relate to nature such the moon and the sun. Squares represent visual simplicity, they have straight lines and right angles suggesting a mathematical, balanced feel. The balanced feel then leads on the feeling safe, comfortable and even stability. So from my explanation of what I think the colours and shapes mean, I have decided to colour in the circle red, the triangle yellow and the square blue.

Bauhaus building block set was designed by Alma Siedhoff-Buscher at Bauhaus in 1923.The set consists of 22 wooden pieces of different shapes, sizes and colours. This was designed to stimulate children's imaginations through exploring several combinations of forms and colours.

Experimenting with this design, I recreated a version of the boat using coloured acetate paper. I layered these cut outs over a picture which I took when I went out at sea. I really like the use of simple shapes and colours to produce a design and how they can be used in a more complex way.