Johannes itten

Johannes Itten

Swiss painter, designer, and art educator

Johannes Itten (11 November &#; 25 March ) was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus (Staatliches Bauhaus) school. Together with German-American painter Lyonel Feininger and German sculptor Gerhard Marcks, under the direction of German architect Walter Gropius, Itten was part of the core of the Weimar Bauhaus.

12 teiliger farbkreis johannes itten biography Johannes Itten (11 November – 25 March ) was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus (Staatliches Bauhaus) school. Together with German-American painter Lyonel Feininger and German sculptor Gerhard Marcks, under the direction of German architect Walter Gropius, Itten was.

Life and work

He was born in Südern-Linden, Switzerland. From to he trained as an elementary school teacher.[1] Beginning in he taught using methods developed by the creator of the kindergarten concept, Friedrich Fröbel, and was exposed to the ideas of psychoanalysis.

In he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva but was unimpressed with the educators there, and returned to Bern. Itten's studies at the Bern-Hofwil Teachers' Academy with Ernst Schneider proved seminal for his later work as a master at the Bauhaus. Itten adopted principles espoused by Schneider, including the practice of not correcting his students' creative work on an individual basis, for fear that this would crush the creative impulse.

Rather, he selected certain common mistakes to correct for the class as a whole.

12 teiliger farbkreis johannes itten biography wikipedia Around years later, Johannes Itten expanded Newton’s color wheel to include 12 colors instead of 6. These 12 colors included red, yellow and blue as the primary colors; orange, green and purple as the secondary colors, and 6 intermediary colors created by mixing a primary color with a secondary color.

In , he returned to Geneva, where he studied under Eugène Gilliard, an abstract painter.

He was heavily influenced by Adolf Hölzel and Franz Cižek.[2] Itten opened a private art school in Vienna, using the work and textbook of Eugène Gilliard as a base. From Hölzel, Itten adopted a series of basic shapes (the line, the plane, the circle, the spiral) as a means from which to begin creation, and the use of gymnastic exercises to relax his students and prepare them for the experiences that were to occur in the class.[3]

From to , Itten taught at the Bauhaus, developing the innovative "preliminary course"[4] which was to teach students the basics of material characteristics, composition, and color.

"Itten theorized seven types of color contrast and devised exercises to teach them. His color contrasts include[d] (1) contrast by hue, (2) contrast by value, (3) contrast by temperature, (4) contrast by complements (neutralization), (5) simultaneous contrast (from Chevreuil), (6) contrast by saturation (mixtures with gray), and (7) contrast by extension (from Goethe)."[5]

In he invited Gertrud Grunow, to teach a course on the "theory of harmony" at the Bauhaus.

This involved using music and relaxation techniques with the aim of improving the students' creativity.[6]

In Itten invited Paul Klee and Georg Muche to join him at the Bauhaus.[7] He published a book, The Art of Color, which describes his ideas as a furthering of Adolf Hölzel's color wheel.

Itten's so called "color sphere" went on to include 12 colors.

In , Itten established the Ontos Weaving Workshops[8] near Zürich, with the help of Bauhaus weaver Gunta Stölzl.

Itten was a follower of Mazdaznan, a neo-Zoroastrian religion founded in the United States. He observed a strict vegetarian diet and practiced meditation as a means to develop inner understanding and intuition, which was for him the principal source of artistic inspiration and practice.[3] Itten's mysticism and the reverence in which he was held by a group of the students, some of whom converted to Mazdaznan (e.g.

Georg Muche), created conflict with Walter Gropius who wanted to move the school in a direction that embraced mass production rather than solely individual artistic expression. The rift led to Itten's resignation from the Bauhaus and his prompt replacement by László Moholy-Nagy in [9][10] From to he had a small art and architecture school in Berlin, in which Ernst Neufert, the former chief-architect of Walter Gropius at the Bauhaus, taught as well from to

Itten's works exploring the use and composition of color resemble the square op art canvases of artists such as Josef Albers, Max Bill and Bridget Riley, and the expressionist works of Wassily Kandinsky.

  • – Private art school in Berlin
  • – Director of the Textilfachschule in Krefeld
  • – Director at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich
  • – Director of the Textilfachschule in Zürich
  • – Director of the Museum Rietberg, Zürich, a museum for non-European art
  • works as freelance painter
  • colour courses at the HfG Ulm (Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm)

Influence

Itten's work on color is also said to be an inspiration for seasonal color analysis.

Johannes itten color wheel: Around years later, Johannes Itten expanded Newton’s color wheel to include 12 colors instead of 6. These 12 colors included red, yellow and blue as the primary colors; orange, green and purple as the secondary colors, and 6 intermediary colors created by mixing a primary color with a secondary color.

Itten had been the first to associate color palettes with four types of people, and had designated those types with the names of seasons. His studies of color palettes and color interaction directly influenced the Op Art movement and other color abstraction base movements. Shortly after his death, his designations gained popularity in the cosmetics industry with the publication of Color Me A Season.

Cosmetologists today continue to use seasonal color analysis, a tribute to the early work by Itten.[5]

Bibliography

Filmography

Notes

  1. ^Fiell, Charlotte; Fiell, Peter (). Design of the 20th Century (25th anniversary&#;ed.).

    Köln: Taschen. p.&#; ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;

  2. ^Curtis, William ().

    12 teiliger farbkreis johannes itten biography images

    "Farbkreis" by Johannes Itten (). Main topic: RYB color model. From to , Itten taught at the Bauhaus, developing the innovative "preliminary course" [ 4 ] which was to teach students the basics of material characteristics, composition, and color.

    "Walter Gropius, German Expressionism, and the Bauhaus". Modern Architecture Since (2nd&#;ed.). Fudge cakes Hall. p.&#; ISBN&#;.

  3. ^ abDroste, Magdalena (). Bauhaus: , pp. Taschen.

    Johannes itten paintings Johannes Itten and his chart for teaching color theory at the Bauhaus Weimar: Farbenkugel in 7 Lichtstufen und 12 Tönen / Colour Sphere in 7 Light Stages and 12 Tones, Photo Paula Stockmar, Bauhaus Archiv Berlin Johannes Itten was one of the main pedagogical forces behind the Bauhaus and taught a foundation course in craft through the.

    ISBN&#;

  4. ^Ruhrberg, Karl, and Walther, Ingo F. (). Art of the 20th Century, p. Taschen. ISBN&#;
  5. ^ abDavid Burton (), "Applying Color", Art Education, 37 (1), USA: National Art Education Association: 40–43, doi/, JSTOR&#;
  6. ^Éva Forgács (1 January ).

    The Bauhaus Idea and Bauhaus Politics. Central European University Press. pp.&#;58–. ISBN&#;.

  7. ^Frampton, Kenneth (). "The Bauhaus: the evolution of an idea ".

  8. Item 2 of 5
  9. Introduction to Color Expert Johannes Itten - Segmation
  10. Johannes Itten - Wikipedia
  11. Item 2 of 3
  12. Modern Architecture: a critical history (3rd ed. rev.&#;ed.). New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, Inc. p.&#; ISBN&#;.

  13. ^"The Weavers on the Bauhaus Stairway". .

  14. Johannes itten color wheel
  15. 12 teiliger farbkreis johannes itten biography pdf
  16. Johannes itten
  17. Retrieved

  18. ^Magdalena Droste and the Bauhaus Archive, Bauhaus, Taschen,
  19. ^Raizman, David (). A History of Modern Design, p. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd. ISBN&#;

Further reading

External links