Getty Museum

Rothenburg

Date

1926–1928

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

> In 1925 the Bauhaus closed in Weimar due to political pressures and the withdrawal of state funding. The school’s new facility in Dessau was designed by architect and Bauhaus director Walter Gropius. László Moholy-Nagy followed the school to Dessau where he continued to teach. The medieval city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, perhaps a vacation destination during Moholy-Nagy’s residence in Dessau, would have provided a stark contrast with the glass and steel of the Bauhaus buildings. This very modern view of the ancient city employs Moholy’s favored birds-eye view, a device used in many of his camera images and photomontages to present familiar scenes in an unfamiliar, and therefore stimulating, manner. > > Moholy was interested in discovering the camera’s unique contributions to seeing, and his explorations were aided by the advent of lightweight, portable equipment. The high vantage point of this rooftop enabled him to capture the photogramlike shadows cast by the setting sun. The stripe down the middle of the road, the dark circle of the fountain, and the shape of the building in shadow in the foreground are consistent with his concern with light and form in all media. > > Katherine Ware, *László Moholy-Nagy*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), 50. © 1995 The J. Paul Getty Museum.

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