Page 64 - Studio International - September 1968

Theatre designs—the mask
drawings were a teaching
aid made by Oskar Schlemmer

The mutual influences at work in the Bauhaus show up
at their clearest in the work of the Theatre Workshop.
Here the output was sculptural, constructivist and
above all, in costumes, masks and scenery, really three
dimensional graphic design rather than theatre in the
existing convention.
Photography was an important part of all Bauhaus
work. Moholy-Nagy developed and taught ex-camera
photographic techniques -photograms, multiple ex-
posures, collages and highly sophisticated printing.
The output was put to practical use in graphic design.
The picture was no longer considered an illustration to
the printed message but developed into an integral
part of the overall design. This montage was particu-
larly successful in using the 'realistic' image-what
could be more real than a photograph-in an irrational
way : by the placing of the image in unreal space, by
distortion and the deliberate use of incongruous juxta-
position. Even seemingly straightforward furniture
catalogues take on a harder, more real than reality,
dream-like character that is clearly evident in retrospect.
In fact, for all its rationalization, a streak of dada-ist
fantasy runs through the Bauhaus from beginning to
end as a necessary ingredient-not an antedote, but an
essential counterpart to the purism. This was by no
means common to the Bauhaus alone, it can be epito-
mized in a single example- Malevich's suprematist
painting of white on white of 1918, simultaneously
the purest form of constructivism and the height of
extravagant irrationality.
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