Bauhaus Pedagogy and the Paradigm Shift in the Visual Arts

Abstract

Rainer Wick (1986), in the subchapter "Bauhaus pedagogy in the context of art school reform", raises the discussion between the interpreters of the radical break with the tradition of this school, and Walter Gropius’ argumentation of Bauhaus pedagogy in relation to certain traditions inherited from medieval lodges, workshops and Renaissance guilds, in the context of the art school reforms of the early twentieth century in Europe. In this connection, this text shows a paradigm shift in the visual arts of which the Bauhaus is a part, imperceptible in discourses, but indisputable in the works of a model of Bauhaus artists that includes Gropius, Kandinsky, Albers, Moholy-Nagy, Mondrian, Malevich and Albers. The visual system of these works derives from a conception of art that is contrary to and incompatible with all tradition, but which is superimposed by the Bauhaus means of craftsmanship and engineering.