Josef Albers : To Open Eyes

Josef Albers, Bauhaus Master 1923 - 1933

Bauhaus Manifesto 1919-1923, written by Walter Gropius

New Bauhaus Building Dessau 1925/26

   One of the finest art educators of the past century, Josef Albers started out his career as a primary school teacher before he enrolled as a student to study in the prestigious Weimar Bauhaus in 1920. In 1923 he was approached by the schools director Walter Gropius, and asked to teach on the preliminary course, known as the Vorkus, when Johannes Itten resigned. Albers took charge of the Design Course on the Vorkus, educating students on the versatility of material and design.He became the first former student to teach at the Bauhaus. Over the next seven years and under his direction, the preliminary course changed drastically, with nothing but the name remaining the same.During this period Albers developed a series of teaching exercises that he would continue to use in this teaching career over the next forty years. 1933 seen the closure of the Bauhaus, due to Nazi pressure, and the emigration of Albers to the United States. Yet the seeds had been planted and art schools throughout Euorpe had taken notice, they began to introduce Albers basic design exercises into their curriculums.
   Albers emigrated to the United Stated with his wife and Bauhaus colleuge Anni Albers, to two new teaching posts in a revolutionary art school in North Carolina, known as Black Mountain College. Here Albers ran the painting programme and developed the first course dedicated to Colour. A development which would prove pivotal in his career. He was then offered the position of Head of Design in Yale University in 1949, his arrival seen a complete overall to the current curriculum and the embrace of Albers Basic Courses. There were courses in basic design, colour, drawing and painting. All of which stemmed from the Bauhaus and were modified in Black Mountain.It was here in Yale University Albers Colour course can into full flourish ion, and it was here that he wrote his most notable studies on Colour,"Homage To The Square" in 1949 "The Interaction Of Colour" in 1963, but that's for another blog..........

Students work from Albers Preliminary Course at the Bauhaus

Students work from Preliminary course

Albers examining students work on the Preliminary course 1929

Black Mountain College Logo

"Homage To The Square" series from 1949, Josef Albers

"Interaction Of Colour" 1963, Joself Albers

Bauhaus : School of Modernism

     
 The most celebrated art school of the twentieth century is the Bauhaus of Germany. Established in 1919 it was nick-named "The School Of Modernism," which bid to integrate all art practices in an interdisciplinary practice. The Bauhaus movement  has had lasting implications, effecting every artist who studied in an art institution since the 1920’s.  It wasn’t their beliefs in art but the terms in which art is taught, which we continue to practice to this present day. The Bauhaus was unique for it’s time, it was avant-garde and pursed the opportunity which led to modernism, and through it’s willingness to embrace the mechanical age. Members of the Bauhaus practiced an “anti-academic education.” They believed that traditional academies didn’t distinguish between high and applied arts. Also believing that they dissolved the connection between fine art and architecture. The Bauhaus believed that traditional academies did not prepare the artist for the real world and the times in which they were living in. The founder of the Bauhaus, Walter Gropius vowed to change this.

Bauhaus Publishment of Curriculum 1922

                   

             Gropius felt that all art disciplines should work together, interdisciplinary. The emphasis wasn’t on what was taught, but how it was taught. Learning through doing. Students of all ages were accepted into the Bauhaus, people from different backgrounds, with varying levels of education behind them. Different nationalities and religions. A wide range of diversity in people would help the development of the human character. The Bauhaus wanted members to actively participate in both design and discussion.It attracted international personalitiesGropius’ visions’ and the Bauhaus teachings are still practiced today. The development of a new way to teach art was embraced. The ideas of interdisciplinary courses are still in art colleges. No disciplines are taught in isolation, no disciplines are deemed more important that the other. Learning through doing is the bases of art, theories can be taught but putting them into practice is another matter. Even mainstream schools, at primary and secondary level have embraced the notion of learning through doing. Also the establishment of a preliminary course was adopted in a similar way in art education all over the world and is still used today

 The Bauhaus changed the course of art. Many artists adopted the concept of a studio community, not as a place where art was created in isolation, but a studio where work and play merged into one. Designs from the Bauhuas are still relevant today, ninty years aftr they were orignally sketched on

paper!

Bauhaus furniture: Breuer club-chair, 1925 - 1926

"Every work of art is a child of its age”

- Vasily Kandinsky

Ps. I have a known weakness for the Bauhaus, their design and pedagogy on art education, must be why im frantically writing my thesis on it at the minute!