The Bauhaus and Studio Art Education

What I read

In this article, the author—the assistant dean at Pratt—describes how the Bauhaus style of education has become the generally accepted way to teach art and design.

The author begins by reflecting on the relationship between art education and the style of art that is produced in the world. He starts with the assertion that “the basic influence on studio art education in this country in the last fifty years is derived primarily from a single source: the German institution called the Bauhaus.” Prior to the Bauhaus, most art was focused on a model for truth, reality, and diving insight, but a new approach was “promulgated by science and scientific methodology.” The Bauhaus attempted to isolate the various elements of art, and then study each one independently, much like one might study a natural phenomenon. Once a student learned the pieces, they could then assemble them, and this allowed for a variety of ways of considering the output, not just the singular approach to Renaissance style.

The Bauhaus was focused on problems in the context of art and design, and “introduced the notion that there could be a number of ‘correct’ solutions of ‘problems.’” These were aesthetic problems, and changed the focus from the output to the process. This was the beginning of modern art, where art could be understood in rational terms, and output was supported by a rational argument. Art-making became highly analytical.

Through a brief discussion of the Bauhaus history, the author then describes the different ways the leaders of the Bauhaus shaped the curriculum and teaching attitude. Gropius was an architect; he urged designers and artists to embrace modern technological advancements, rather than fight against them. The author describes briefly a difference in approach by Van der Rohe and Albers, and arrives at his key argument – that the foundations course developed over time by the different Bauhaus leaders emerged as the most influential part of modern art and design education. It was analytical in nature, and emphasized both craft and methodical investigation of separate parts of art making. The author conclude that, as this has become a ubiquitous way of teaching and thinking about art and design, the Bauhaus “formalized those approaches which are now virtually dogma in the teaching of studio art.”

What I learned and what I think

As I read these older articles, I keep wishing that I had paid more attention in history, both in high school and then also in the various art and design history classes at CMU. Dick and Craig hammered Bauhaus on us, and I can remember the high level ideas, but the nuance has been lost, and these are starting to bring some of it back.

There’s a really subtle thing going on here about the relationship of experimentation, but only after formality. I see how the study into materials and approaches (color, additive, subtractive, figure) can be thought of as scientific, although I don’t view it as positivist because it’s a thorough exploration for building experience, not a search for some sort of objective truism (color theory may be different, because it really is getting towards the way the eye and perception works.) With that as a grounding, I can also see how those parts then become the ingredients for “going broad,” with a focus on problem solving—and that is much closer to a view that the world is something that can be contained or managed.

I have a hard time envisioning a different way than this, or at least a different way that makes sense based on what I know about how people learn. If I’m holding on to the “separate it before combining it,” I suppose that different things can be separated; instead of focusing on materials, the separation could be between ways of producing (start by telling stories; start by making objects; start by sketching spaces). That’s kind of thin. It could be separating parts of behavior, particularly if the focus is educating students to think across time, and then the parts might be achieving a goal, exploring a context, experiencing a spectacle. I actually think that’s what Dick was doing with the “How People Work,”, “How Things Work,” and “How People Work With Things,” and I think they are still using that framework.

I like the idea of working through different foundation models, if our goal isn’t to make things, but is to make software instead.

As I reflect, it’s kind of amazing, the staying power of the Bauhaus approach to education. Foundations is still a thing at pretty much every school I can think of, perhaps with the exceptions of RCA or Cranbrook, and I think both of those are grad-level. That’s also worth considering; what is the level at which a student enters the school, and how prepared are they? I’m pretty sure that students entering the Bauhaus had a lot more going on than the kids popping out of high school presently, and I don’t see them really being ready to take on something more crazy than foundations at the same time as trying to figure out their role in the world at an art school. But maybe that’s not giving them enough credit; I’ve seen freshman do things that they really shouldn’t be able to do, because they don’t know any better.

I’m feeling like “design pedagogy” needs to be split with a razor into small parts, rather than just being this big, all consuming phrase.