Light in the Work of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy [Volume: 7(1988), pp. 295-308]

306
DIANE KIRKPATRICK
the walls are dark-toned or in deep shadow, but there is enough light from
beams and light clothing to make a balanced light/dark mix. But soon, darkness invades most of the frame, alleviated by patches of light seen through
windows or doorways. A portion of this section was made in a huge residential tenement building which contains four courtyards, one after another
connected by tunnel-like passageways. The people who inhabit this darker
section of the film are dressed more poorly than those in the beginning
section. Then we are back in the world of light, but looking at well-dressed
children, in mid-gray tones, who encircle two of their number fighting
on the ground. A beggar woman dressed in black is silhouetted against a
light wall as she does a little dance to attract coins.
Finally we look through what appears to be the initial window (the
artist's apartment?). However, this time we see a cage with a bird and then
plants on the sill. When we look again out and down from the window,
there on the street is a toy peddler who fills the walk in front of him with
operating mechanical toy birds (mid-gray and black forms against the light
pavement). Close-ups of the birds in action are intercut with shots of a
brilliant white live cat shot against a black surround. The film's lightchronology has taken us from light, through darkness, into a world that
partakes equally of both. The structure imposed by the light-chronology
vivifies both the space-time kinetic light compositions and the underlying
emotional content of the film.
Although Moholy did not make color movies himself (and only worked
occasionally in color photography), he felt that color film had particular
virtues for time-space light art:
Real painting of light which would also have the advantage of movement could of course come into being if the color film were properly
handled... by the creation of forms which are non-imitative.... The
light can become active, not only through the differentiation of reflection or through the power of absorption of any particular material
upon which its rays are cast.... It is here that the real conquest of
color begins, the spiritualization of the direct effect of light.
Moholy envisioned a rich future for the cinema in which not only
would films incorporate mature light-painted time-space images, but also
new modes of multiple projection would allow each film to activate the
space in which it was shown:
The rectangular screen of our cinema theaters is nothing more than
a substitute for easel or flat mural painting. Our conception of space
and of the relations of space and light are still absurdly primitive,
being restricted to the everyday phenomenon of light rays entering
a room through an aperture. It would already be possible to enrich