For Oskar Schlemmer the starting point of all his works in Bauhaus was the space in the stage; he became a pioneer of the stage work-shop from 1923 to 1929. He was interested in combining the artistic abstractive nature with the precision of architec...
For Oskar Schlemmer the starting point of all his works in Bauhaus was the space in the stage; he became a pioneer of the stage work-shop from 1923 to 1929. He was interested in combining the artistic abstractive nature with the precision of architecture. Defining theater costume as the means revealing the double faced law of human body, he introduced the various rules into the theater costume and reformed them in a revolutionary new way.
In Schlemmer, human being is a standard of all other beings, numbers and law, so he tried to express this idea as his theme, the relationship of human body with the space, in the new reformation.
Regarding the encounter between the passive audience and the active expression as the form of the stage, he intended to mold the space of the abstract mechanized movements into the theater art. He had a trial on a performance in which color and form, nature and art, human beings and machines and the acoustics with mechanics, are united.
In seeing theater art as a form of human body, the spacial and timely figures became essential to his performance, with emphasis on the costume and masks.
In his first work, a revolutionary trial, "The Triadic Ballet". he coordinated the human body with the abstract figures.
To the creation of theater costume of this "The Triadic Ballet", two basic ideas are related; One is the desire to meet the emotion of times, and the other is the hope to display the basic rules of stage in sensitivity.
He regulated the reformation of human body following four basic rules:
1. the reformation follow the rule of the surrounding solid space.
2. the functional rule of the human body in relating to the space.
3. the rule of physical movement with the space.
4. the metaphysical expressive form, symbolizing the human body.
With these creative rules, Schlemmer pointed out the contradictory double characters through the expression of costume, and he created the formation of the theater costume, based on the concepts of movement on and within the space.
In his "The Triadic Ballet" as an example displaying his theory, the costume was an achievement of the abnormal harmony, combining between the artistic abstractive nature and the precision of the architecture.
Also, as a trenscendental creation regarding the rational foundation and the architectual form in the visual world, his costume fulfills the human metaphysical desire.
His costume designs showing supernational effects have provoked the dispute among the artists; the sculptural possibility and mind-gaming whatever human bodily movement suggests, was induced to the spiritual intellect.
Though he remains a theatrical footnote, Schlemmer's ideas and techniques influenced a number of successive artists.
Especially, the ideas regarding Schlemmer's performance were applied to Post-Modernists and his works remains timeless art, providing uncommon succession to the future art.