The Bauhaus School (1919-1933) was one of the most influential design and visual arts organizations of the 20th century. The school's emergence occurred in the context of interwar Germany, a political and social period that fostered the developing spirit of revolution and renewal, which bore fruit for the school.
The Bauhaus encompassed the teachings of the visual arts, such as painting, design, architecture, textile art, and even theater, into a lifestyle and philosophy that sought to achieve the liberation of creativity and expressiveness . Over the years, Bauhaus teaching became almost a utopian abstraction, but its legacy was such that it remains a must-see in the history of modern art.
Karl Grill - Bauhaus Costumes, Courtesy of The Charnel House.
Female Bauhaus student. Via Pinterest
Founded by Walter Gropius, the school successfully fused the arts with the crafts and ushered in an educational reform that called for the union of life and art. This legacy stemmed from movements such as Jugendstil-Art Nouveau and Modernism, which laid the foundations for later modernity by reforming production models and liberalizing art education. Many of the school's teachers and those of the modern movement had trained in schools that offered more space for the development of crafts, the abstract movement, and the decorative arts.
Walter Gropius. Via metalocus.es
Limited resources, the need to create a new spirit, and especially the avant-garde movements, marked the need to generate a dialogue between everyday life, the arts, and production, where color played a very important role in a process of deconstruction of the figurative, promoting an education that sought creation with a special focus on functionality, simplicity, and standardization of production processes.
Oskar Schlemmer - Stäbetanz / Coureur des échasses, 1927. © 2016 Oskar Schlemmer, Photo archive C. Raman Schlemmer.
The teaching of color at the Bauhaus
The Bauhaus's value in its relationship with color does not stem from its application to everyday life. It was not used as a resource in architecture; the furniture designed was generally industrial and rather austere, and only textile design and the arts show significant use of color palettes. But color does take on great relevance when we consider the education the school provided regarding color.
Bauhaus Mechanical Ballet. Via widewalls.ch
Within the revolutionary Bauhaus educational model, later criticized on many occasions, and of course persecuted and beaten by Nazi Germany due to its liberal and progressive ideals, color was understood in the school's pedagogy not as an attribute that responded to decorative and adornment needs, but rather as one that should fulfill a practical, aesthetic, and emotional function in all designs.
The school never provided a consistent, coherent color curriculum. In the 1921 educational statutes, the subject of color was listed as a "complementary education." It was in 1922 that Johannes-Itten, who defined himself as a "master of the art of color," began to include color in his elementary school curriculum, making it a mandatory subject in the school's curricula.
Color Wheel. Johannes Itten. Public Domain
Each professor conducted their own analysis and taught color pedagogy from their own perspective. The role of color and the artist during the 19th century shaped the teaching approach of artists and professors such as Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Johannes Itten, based primarily on the color theories of Carl Runge and Goethe, among others. However, Hinnerk Scheper taught practical classes focused on the application of color in crafts and materials, classes more oriented toward the theory of Wilhelm Ostwald.
Ostwald's color theory received considerable criticism within the school. Itten and Klee dismissed his analyses as purely industrial and chemical, and they ignored the most important aspect of color: subjective effects. 
Johannes Itten, Variation II, 1957. Via Pinterest
Johannes Itten "The Elements of Color" Book. 1961. Via Pinterest
Based on his book On the Spiritual in Art (1911), Vasily Kandinsky taught classes on fundamental color theory, where he instructed on essential differences between the physical effect and the psychic effect.
Vorkurs: The Preliminary Course
The Bauhaus Preliminary Course, also known as Vorkurs, was an introductory course to the school whose main objective was to provide solid knowledge that would free students from the technical and creative restrictions acquired in conventional academies.
Led by Johannes Itten, Josef Albers, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, respectively, the course included four essential educational strands, one of which was color. Under the direction of Albers and Itten, faithful to the motto "learning by doing," the course focused on perception and creativity through color exercises aimed at orienting and organizing sensory experiences, raising their awareness and differentiation.
Color Study. Squares with Concentric Circles. 1913. Via wassilykandinsky.net
Laszlo Moholy Nagy. Construction "Al 6", 1933-34 . Via Pinterest
In historical terms, the Bauhaus represents a milestone of special significance in the pedagogy of color. Until then, there were few educational institutions, let alone designers, that devoted significant space and attention to the importance of the subject. Color gained significant educational significance when, in 1921, it went from being a semester-long supplementary subject to a mandatory annual subject.
