12 teiliger farbkreis johannes itten biography

Johannes Itten

Swiss painter, designer, and art educator

Johannes Itten (11 November &#; 25 March ) was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, educator, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus (Staatliches Bauhaus) college.

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.

Life and work

He was born in Südern-Linden, Switzerland.

From to he trained as an elementary college teacher.^[1] Beginning in he taught using methods developed by the creator of the kindergarten principle, 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 dread that this would crush the creative impulse.

Trained as an elementary school teacher, Itten connected the first instructors at the Bauhaus, where he was a Master from His development of the preliminary class of the school revolutionized art education. Instead of having students copy works of the Old Mastershe encouraged them to explore their control feelings and to experiment with colors, materials, and forms. This course emphasized three elements: studies of natural forms and colors, the analysis of canonical artworks, and life drawing.

Rather, he selected certain common mistakes to correct for the class as a whole. 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 initiate 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 instruct students the basics of material characteristics, composition, and color.

"Itten theorized seven types of shade 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 expansion (from Goethe)."^[5]

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

This committed using music and relaxation techniques with the aim of advancing the students' creativity.^[6]

In Itten invited Paul Klee and Georg Muche to join him at the Bauhaus.^[7] He published a novel, The Art of Color, which describes his ideas as a furthering of Adolf Hölzel's hue 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 cerulean 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's so called "color sphere" went on to incorporate 12 colors.

In , Itten established the Ontos Weaving Workshops^[8] near Zürich, with the aid 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 empathetic 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 university 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 shade 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 hue is also said to be an inspiration for seasonal shade analysis.

Itten had been the first to associate color palettes with four types of people, and had designated those types with the names of seasons.

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

His studies of color palettes and tint interaction directly influenced the Op Art movement and other shade 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 hue analysis, a tribute to the early work by Itten.^[5]

Bibliography

Filmography

Notes

^Fiell, Charlotte; Fiell, Peter ().

Design of the 20th Century (25th anniversary&#;ed.).
One of the most leading yet polarizing figures of the early Bauhaus Johannes Itten was a prominent color theorist, gifted teacher, and an eccentric. The Bauhaus School of Design had no shortage of outstanding and remarkable teachers during its brief time. Among them was the Swiss-born designer Johannes Itten who developed the basis for the Bauhaus education, running an all-encompassing introductory course for new students. Apart from teaching, he developed color theories, ran workshops, and expressed interest in a bizarre religious cult.
Köln: Taschen. p.&#; ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;
^Curtis, William (). "Walter Gropius, German Expressionism, and the Bauhaus". Modern Architecture Since (2nd&#;ed.). Fudge cakes Hall. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
^ ^a^bDroste, Magdalena ().

Bauhaus: , pp. Taschen.
Discover the influential work of Johannes Itten, a Swiss expressionist painter, creator, and theorist known for his groundbreaking color theories.
ISBN&#;
^Ruhrberg, Karl, and Walther, Ingo F. (). Art of the 20th Century, p. Taschen. ISBN&#;
^ ^a^bDavid Burton (), "Applying Color", Art Education, 37 (1), USA: National Art Education Association: 40–43, doi/, JSTOR&#;
^Éva Forgács (1 January ).

The Bauhaus Idea and Bauhaus Politics.
Johannes Itten 11 November — 25 March was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, journalist and theorist associated with the Bauhaus Staatliches Bauhaus school. From to he trained as an elementary school teacher. 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' resourceful work on an individual basis, for fear that this would crush the creative impulse.
Core European University Press. pp.&#;58–. ISBN&#;.
^Frampton, Kenneth (). "The Bauhaus: the evolution of an idea ". Modern Architecture: a critical history (3rd ed.
Swiss artist, theorist of new art, and educator, Johannes Itten gained worldwide recognition for his educational course at the Bauhaus, known as the Preliminary Course, which formed the basis of teaching in many contemporary art schools. An observant researcher and sensitive educator, Itten presented his theoretical and pedagogical views, and most importantly, his system of training artists in his famous books on dye and form, published in multiple languages. His system aimed not to suppress individuality but to assist artists in finding their own path without losing confidence in their abilities. Itten was born in Switzerland and initially pursued a career as a teacher.
rev.&#;ed.). New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, Inc. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
^"The Weavers on the Bauhaus Stairway". . Retrieved
^Magdalena Droste and the Bauhaus Archive, Bauhaus, Taschen,
^Raizman, David ().

A History of Modern Design, p. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd. ISBN&#;