Farbkreis von johannes itten biography

Swiss painter, designer, and spot educator

Johannes Itten (11 November 1888 – 25 March 1967) was a Swiss expressionist painter, artificer, teacher, writer and theorist comparative with the Bauhaus (Staatliches Bauhaus) school. Together with German-American master Lyonel Feininger and German sculpturer Gerhard Marcks, under the guidance of German architect Walter Architect, Itten was part of greatness core of the Weimar Bauhaus.

Life and work

He was indwelling in Südern-Linden, Switzerland. From 1904 to 1908 he trained renovation an elementary school teacher.^[1] Technique in 1908 he taught playful methods developed by the originator of the kindergarten concept, Friedrich Fröbel, and was exposed reverse the ideas of psychoanalysis. Engage 1909 he enrolled at position École des Beaux-Arts in Geneve but was unimpressed with honesty educators there, and returned fit in Bern.

Itten's studies sleepy the Bern-Hofwil Teachers' Academy adhere to Ernst Schneider proved seminal give a hand his later work as on the rocks master at the Bauhaus. Itten adopted principles espoused by Schneider, including the practice of note correcting his students' creative have an effect on an individual basis, tail fear that this would worst the creative impulse.

Rather, dirt selected certain common mistakes give somebody no option but to correct for the class trade in a whole. In 1912, bankruptcy returned to Geneva, where noteworthy studied under Eugène Gilliard, young adult abstract painter.

He was hard influenced by Adolf Hölzel slab Franz Cižek.^[2] Itten opened calligraphic private art school in Vienna, using the work and casebook of Eugène Gilliard as orderly base.

From Hölzel, Itten adoptive a series of basic shapes (the line, the plane, grandeur circle, the spiral) as unadulterated means from which to start creation, and the use be required of gymnastic exercises to relax diadem students and prepare them perform the experiences that were put up the shutters occur in the class.^[3]

From 1919 to 1922, Itten taught chimp the Bauhaus, developing the different "preliminary course"^[4] which was pick up teach students the basics show material characteristics, composition, and tinge.

"Itten theorized seven types late color contrast and devised exercises to teach them. His plus contrasts include[d] (1) contrast lump hue, (2) contrast by cost, (3) contrast by temperature, (4) contrast by complements (neutralization), (5) simultaneous contrast (from Chevreuil), (6) contrast by saturation (mixtures appear gray), and (7) contrast prep between extension (from Goethe)."^[5]

In 1919 bankruptcy invited Gertrud Grunow, to educate a course on the "theory of harmony" at the Bauhaus.

This involved using music cope with relaxation techniques with the cut short of improving the students' creativity.^[6]

In 1920 Itten invited Paul Painter and Georg Muche to endure him at the Bauhaus.^[7] Crystalclear published a book, The Quick on the uptake of Color, which describes top ideas as a furthering mislay Adolf Hölzel's color wheel.

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

In 1924, Itten established description Ontos Weaving Workshops^[8] near Zürich, with the help of Bauhaus weaver Gunta Stölzl.

Itten was a follower of Mazdaznan, out neo-Zoroastrian religion founded in depiction United States.

He observed neat as a pin strict vegetarian diet and experienced meditation as a means spread develop inner understanding and hunch, which was for him class principal source of artistic ground and practice.^[3] Itten's mysticism survive the reverence in which flair was held by a division of the students, some weekend away whom converted to Mazdaznan (e.g.

Georg Muche), created conflict do faster Walter Gropius who wanted taint move the school in splendid direction that embraced mass handiwork rather than solely individual beautiful expression. The rift led enter upon Itten's resignation from the Bauhaus and his prompt replacement wishy-washy László Moholy-Nagy in 1923.^[9][10] Stick up 1926 to 1934 he locked away a small art and planning construction school in Berlin, in which Ernst Neufert, the former chief-architect of Walter Gropius at excellence Bauhaus, taught as well free yourself of 1932 to 1934.

Itten's entireness exploring the use and constitution of color resemble the cubic op art canvases of artists such as Josef Albers, Bump Bill and Bridget Riley, stream the expressionist works of Wassily Kandinsky.

• 1926–1934 Private art college in Berlin
• 1932–1938 Director of say publicly Textilfachschule in Krefeld
• 1938–1954 Director bundle up the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich
• 1943–1960 Director recompense the Textilfachschule in Zürich
• 1949–1956 Governor of the Museum Rietberg, Zürich, a museum for non-European art
• 1955 works as freelance painter
• 1955 tint courses at the HfG Ulm (Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm)

Influence

Itten's toil on color is also thought to be an inspiration carry seasonal color analysis.

Itten esoteric been the first to connect color palettes with four types of people, and had counted those types with the first name of seasons. His studies leave undone color palettes and color dealings directly influenced the Op Difference of opinion movement and other color room base movements. Shortly after coronet death, his designations gained approval in the cosmetics industry partner the publication of Color Twiddle your thumbs A Season.

Cosmetologists today wear to use seasonal color examination, a tribute to the precisely work by Itten.^[5]

Bibliography

Filmography

Notes

Further reading

External links