The Bauhaus has evolved into an inspiring idea for creativity and art from its humble beginning as an academic institute. It was a school in Germany with the vision of integrating art and industry by combining fine arts with crafts. Although the school did not continue physically, the school of thought did and the idea of Bauhaus lives on. The school was established in three German cities in different time periods: in Weimar from 1919 to 1925, in Dessau from 1925 to 1932 and finally in Berlin from 1932 to 1933. The Nazi government claimed that it was a centre of communist propaganda spreading communist intellectualism. The ruthless pressure from the Nazi regime resulted in the closure of the school. However, the closing could not deter the growth of the idea central to Bauhaus. The staff continued to spread its concepts and ideas as they left Germany and emigrated all over the world.
Bauhaus has its influence in the art of Photography as well. It is quite evident in camera-less photography. The concept and technique of camera-less photography is as old as photography itself. For example, in 1834, Wiliam Henry Fox Talbot produced images without camera that he called “photogenic drawings”. However, the years following World War I saw intensive avant-garde experimentation with the form of camera-less photography. In 1919, the German artist Christian Schad made a series of “Schadographs”. Man Ray, an American photographer working in Paris, produced the first “Rayograms” in 1921. There are many experimentations from the Bauhaus school of thought in this as well. One of the prominent ones are the work of Moholy-Nagy's first photograms at Bauhaus from 1922. He developed his art by placing easily identifiable object directly on print-out paper in direct sunlight. His work reveals an interest not only in what he described as “spatial rhythm & equilibrium of form” but also especially in the problems of spatial relationships among pictorial elements in a non-perspectival field.
Photogram by László Moholy-Nagy
The focus of Moholy’s work was on the exploration of new artistic media. It was trying to get “art's conception of itself” in line “with the media of mechanical reproduction” and, by doing so, provide a new acceptable place for art in an advanced industrial society. The course he taught in Bauhaus as well as his work stimulated his students to engage in their own experiments. They were deeply concerned with contemporary problems on space relation and actively engaged on the new artistic possibilities through photography: i.e. bird's eye and worms eye view, negative effect, double exposure and double printing, micro photography and enlargements. Therefore photography was considered an end itself for artistic endeavor but it was also put to practical use, for example, design and layout in advertising, posters and typography.
Thus, Photography at the Bauhaus contributed to the development of photographic experimentation and its acceptance as a suitable aesthetic medium for the modern society. It also played an integral part in the formation of a new mass culture.
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