"Is this a forward movement, or is the body being lowered by the knees, which is a downward movement not a horizontal movement"
Lowering is both a downward movement and a horizontal movement that occurs at the same time. When lowering from foot closure a beginner might be excused for not knowing about the horizontal part as it starts out small and only becomes large towards the completion of the lowering, but an advanced dancer must have this in their awareness. And the horizontal component should be obvious to everyone when lowering with the feet apart.
"If you were to move your body forward first, how do you propose to bend your standing knee to an angle of 45 degrees."
I would not, as doing so is pointedly absurd. An angle of 45 degrees in the knee would give you the appearance of someone trying to sit on his heels and do cossack kicks. I rather suspect you meant to write about something else, such as the angle of the shin relative to the floor? (though that would only reach 45 degrees in championship scale movement)
"It is a fact that if I move my weight forward first I will find it almost impossible to bend my standing leg without my body pitching forrward."
Only because you personally have not yet learned how to manage the trajectory of your body weight, and how to decouple that from your posture so that you can remain upright.
That you seem to want to be bending your standing leg at a point in time when you should be straightening it from its bent position doesn't help matters either.