ABSTRACT
Vsevolod Meyerhold, for many years a commanding figure in the world of Russian theater, had it in mind in the 1920s to open the theater to new social ideas. Kasimir Malevich was marking time until he was ready, and until the world was ready, to dispense altogether with recognizable subject matter. In Bauhaus Stairway, the upward movement of students on the main staircase of the Bauhaus can be read symbolically: a new world lies on the next landing. Paul Klee’s paintings are sometimes taken to be pure whimsy, but in fact they almost always have their point of departure in something that he had observed with particular precision in the world around him. Light and color would not merely make use of space with a new freedom; they would remake and remodel space in ways never before dreamed of. In 1920 Fernand Leger also made friends with architect who came nearest to realizing his dream of the new metropolis—Le Corbusier.
