Good Evening Herr Goethe!

Tyana J LittleString visits the Bauhaus Museum in Weimar

                I see it now, Herr Goethe, in my drawing your head is too round. Entschuldigung! Maybe when I am at home again, I will have time to rectify…. The Radierung thing, you know…. Erase and rebuild.

                Speaking of home, time really flies. Time flies on the millions of tiny wings we call snowflakes, though sometimes it just gets stomped on by mighty boots, trampled into a wet, icy obstacle. I’ve tried to make a systematic attempt at the important attractions here, but weather conditions haven’t always been kind and I had to take places like Leipzig, Dresden, and Prague off the list. What was I thinking, anyway? I must take a separate journey to Prague. A visit to Herr Kafka and Herr Rilke will probably be wiser during the sunny season anyway.

                Herr Goethe, I have been to several museums, your home, Herr Schiller’s home, two churches, two cemeteries, Duchess Amalia’s Bibliothek, a modern shopping center, the Park on the Ilm. Some places are closed for the winter, for instance Herr Nietzsche’s Archive, the Liszt House, the Kirms-Krakow House. I’ve wandered the back alleys of Weimar, have tasted crepes and tiramisu, (those seem to be in vogue) and the Weimar necessities, bratwurst and dumplings. 

 Yesterday I even entered the Bauhaus, though I am not much interested in architecture at this time. I was surprised to find so much more. The Bauhaus idea originated here in Weimar; I didn’t know that. As usual, I ended up being attracted to a minor piece. It was a group of marionettes. Hand-sewn and decorated. A student probably produced them during the introductory year.  

                Each student, I was told, had to spend the first year more or less stripping him or herself from preconceived ideas of art and construction, and had to produce, individually, concepts of their own imagination, be it a chair, a painting, a play, a machine of some sort, an architectural plan. This was after your time, when individual expression had become possible for more than the aristocracy. Interestingly, Bauhaus was more of an idea than a successful operation. Yes, students were trained as artists and artisans/craftsmen alike, but as for designing homes, few of them were built. I don’t think that the shortcomings were those of teachers or students; the conservative citizens of Weimar reacted negatively toward the avant-garde of design. People everywhere, it seems, are weary of change. They distrust artists. Bauhaus eventually moved to Dessau, but during intense right-wing political conditions it was banned completely. Bauhaus ideas survived though, carried to the US by enthusiastic students.

                The marionettes have tickled my interest; I might look into making a few. There are many subjects I want to explore when I get home and I will continue to inform you of my findings. I realize that my time here is coming to an end faster than I had expected and I don’t know if I will have an Internet connection in Heidelberg. For tonight a greeting from Tyana is in order. I knitted myself another pair of socks in the last few days and with the left-over yarn I made the bear a hat for the snow. Enclosed is a photograph of her seeking shelter at the now unused Gluehwein stand.

Ihre  Gisela.