Chapter 7. Bauhaus

Lyonel saw planes of light

Lyonel was a composer, a photographer, and an artist. For a living, he drew caricatures and comic strips, and he taught at Bauhaus. Planes of light framed a small brown house in Gaberndorf, Weimar, Germany, as though it weren’t anything special, and Lyonel was the one to notice.

Paul struggled with color

Paul struggled with color until on a visit to Tunisia color possessed him. He saw something there in the quality of the light and became a painter.

Wassily reached for inner beauty

Wassily’s art was motivated by theory, practice, and inner beauty. He knew each color produced an emotion and each line a force. For him, paintings were alive; they breathe and vibrate to resonate with human souls.

László made art machines

László might have been the first to realize that a work of art is a machine that drives human emotions. It can be as simple as a lever or as complex as a ferris wheel whether in two or three dimensions.

Josef made homage to the square

Josef paired visual elements to their minimum. Simple nested squares with subdued colors showed how much colored squares could do.