ABSTRACT
German art emerged from the confusion of 1914–1918 with a variety of abstract and near-abstract movements, the most important of which had already developed before the War. The various abstract alive in Germany after the War, together with influences from Holland and Russia, were united in the famous Bauhaus, founded by the architect Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919. In 1919, through Lyonel Feininger, the influence of the Dutch Stijl group began to permeate the Bauhaus. In 1925 the Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau where Gropius designed a group of new buildings, among them the Director’s house. Stijl influence at the Bauhaus was not limited to architecture. The chess set, like Gropius’ facade and Breuer’s chair, epitomizes Bauhaus design which was, during the transitional period 1922–1928, an eclectic fusion in various quantities of abstract geometrical elements with the new ideal of utilitarian functionalism.
