Bauhaus and the culture of drawing

Designers talk ideas but better still, they visualise them. And drawing is a prime tool for ideation, as celebrated by Bauhaus, the German design school founded 100 years ago (1919-1933). Paul Klee was one of the school's teachers promoting drawing not only as a practice but a practice underpinned by theory, as articulated in his Pedagogical Sketchbook (1925). This was in parallel to his Bauhaus colleague Johannes Itten who emphasised the psychological and emotional aspects of drawing, as well as colour, including gymnastic excercises to loosen up the body before drawing. Klee's lesson plans included hands-on step-by-step approaches to creative expression, such as outlining the types of lines and how a line can become a plane; drawing from observation analysing natural forms (from fish to plants to the body's circulatory system); drawing with colour (explaining Goethe's colour wheel) also making connections between colour and music; and researching contemporary and historic drawings in terms of line, form and colour. Klee, like Itten, provided student feedback but did not give individual grades believing that this would stifle the creative impuls.