Bauhaus:il manifesto originale

Untitled Bauhaus manifesto 1919 . The complete building is the final aim of the visual arts. Their noblest function was once the decoration of buildings. Today they exist in isolation, from which they all can be rescued only through the conscious, cooperative effort of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew the composite character of a building as an entity. Only then will their work be imbued with the architectonic spirit that it lost when it became a "salon art." The old art schools were unable to achieve this unity and, after all, how could they, since art cannot be taught? They must be absorbed once more by the workshop. This world of designers and decorators, who only draw and paint, must finally become one of builders again. If the young person who feels within him the urge to create again, as in former times, begins his career by learning a handicraft, the unproductive artist will, in the future, no longer remain condemned to the creation of mediocre art, because his skill will redound the benefit of the handicrafts, in which he will be able to produce things of excellence. Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all turn to the crafts! Art is not a profession. There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. In rare moments of inspiration, moments beyond the control of his will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency in his craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies a source of creative imagination. Let us create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist. Together let us conceive and create the new building of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will rise one day toward heaven from the hands of a million workers, like the crystal symbol of a new faith. WALTER GROPIUS The National Bauhaus at Weimar grew out of the merger of the former Grandducal Saxonian School of Graphic Arts and the Grandducal Saxonian School of Arts and Crafts, with the addition of a new department for architecture. Objectives of the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus strives to reunite arts and crafts - sculpture, painting, applied art, and handicrafts - as the permanent elements of a new architecture. The ultimate, though distant aim of the Bauhaus is the Einheitskunstwerk (Uniform Work of Art) - the great construction that recognizes no boundaries between monumental and decorative art. The Bauhaus wants to educate architects, painters and sculptors of all sorts to become qualified craftsmen or independent creative artists. It also aspires to establish a study group of leading artists who will be able to design buildings in their entirety - from rough brickwork to completion, including embellishments and furnishings that reflect a similar spirit and unity. Principles of the Bauhaus. Art in itself is beyond all methods; Continua »