Johannes Itten - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Johannes Itten was a Swiss expressionist

Expressionist architecture

Expressionist architecture was an architectural movement that developed in Europe during the first decades of the 20th century in parallel with the expressionist visual and performing arts....

painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus

Bauhaus

', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...

(Staatliche Bauhaus) school. Together with German-American painter Lyonel Feininger

Lyonel Feininger

Lyonel Charles Feininger was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist.-Life and work:...

and German sculptor Gerhard Marcks

Gerhard Marcks

Gerhard Marcks was a German sculptor, who is also well-known for his drawings, woodcuts, lithographs and ceramics.-Background:...

, under the direction of German architect Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius

Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....

, Itten was part of the core of the Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

Bauhaus

Life and work

Born in Südern-Linden, Switzerland, he studied as an elementary school teacher from 1904 to 1908. Beginning in 1908 he taught using methods developed by Friedrich Fröbel and was exposed to the ideas of psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...

. He later enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

but then returned to Bern, after being unimpressed with the educators there. Itten's studies at the Bern-Hofwil Teachers' Academy with Ernst Schneider proved seminal for his later work as a master at the Bauhaus

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.

He was heavily influenced by Adolf Hölzel

Adolf Hölzel

Adolf Hölzel was a German artist/painter. His style developed from Impressionism to expressive modernism.- Biography :...

and Franz Cižek

Franz Cižek

Franz Cižek was an Austrian genre and portrait painter as well as a teacher and reformer of art education. Cižek was born in Leitmeritz, in northern Bohemia and studied painting under the German painters Franz Rumpler and Josef Mathias von Trenkwald at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna...

, in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

using the work and textbook of Eugène Gilliard, an abstract

Abstract art

Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...

painter, 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.

From 1919 to 1922, Itten taught at the Bauhaus, developing the innovative "preliminary course" which was to teach students the basics of material characteristics, composition, and color. In 1920 Itten invited Paul Klee

Paul Klee

Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...

and Georg Muche

Georg Muche

Georg Muche was a German painter, printmaker, architect, author, and teacher.-Early life and education:Georg Muche was born on 8 May 1895 in Querfurt, in the south of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany and grew up in the Rhön area...

to join him at the Bauhaus. He also published a book, The Art of Color, which describes these ideas as a furthering of Adolf Hölzel's color wheel. Itten's so called "color sphere" went on to include 12 colors.
In 1924, Itten established the “Ontos Weaving Workshops” near Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, with the help of Bauhaus weaver Gunta Stölzl

Gunta Stölzl

Gunta Stölzl was a German textile artist who played a fundamental role in the development of the Bauhaus school’s weaving workshop. As the Bauhaus’s only female master she created enormous change within the weaving department as it transitioned from individual pictorial works to modern industrial...

.

Itten was a follower of Mazdaznan

Mazdaznan

Mazdaznan is a syncretistic religious health movement based on Zoroastrian and Christian ideas with special focus on breathing exercises, vegetarian diet and body culture. It was founded at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century by Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish, born Otto Hanisch...

, a fire cult originating in the United States that was largely derived from Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...

. He observed a strict vegetarian diet and practiced meditation

Meditation

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....

as a means to develop inner understanding and intuition, which was for him the principal source of artistic inspiration and practice. Itten's mysticism and the reverence in which he was held by a group of the students some of who 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

Mass production

Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...

rather than solely individual artistic expression. The rift led to Itten's resignation from the Bauhaus and his prompt replacement by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

László Moholy-Nagy

László Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts.-Early life:...

in 1923.(Magdalena Droste and the Bauhaus Archive, Bauhaus, Taschen, 2006) From 1926 to 1934 he had a small art and architecture school in Berlin, in which Ernst Neufert

Ernst Neufert

Ernst Neufert was a German architect who is known as an assistant of Walter Gropius, as a teacher and member of various standardization organizations, and especially for his essential handbook Architects' Data.- Life :...

, the former chief-architect of Walter Gropius at the Bauhaus, taught as well from 1932 to 1934.

Itten's works exploring the use and composition of color resemble the square op art

Op art

Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...

canvases of artists such as Josef Albers

Josef Albers

Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....

, Max Bill

Max Bill

Max Bill was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer.Bill was born in Winterthur...

and Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley

Bridget Louise Riley CH CBE is an English painter who is one of the foremost proponents of Op art.-Early life:...

, and the expressionist works of Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...

1926–1934 Private art school in Berlin
1932–1938 Director of the Textilfachschule in Krefeld
1938–1954 Director at the Kunstgewerbeschule
Kunstgewerbeschule
A Kunstgewerbeschule was the old name for an advanced school of applied arts in German-speaking countries. The first such schools were opened in Kassel in 1867 and Berlin and Munich in 1868 with other German towns following. They are now merged into universities....
1943–1960 Director of the Textilfachschule in Zürich
1949–1956 Director of the Museum Rietberg, Zürich, a museum for non-European art
1955 works as freelance painter
1955 colour courses at the HfG Ulm
Ulm School of Design
The Ulm School of Design was a college of design based in Ulm, Germany.Founded in 1953 by Inge Aicher-Scholl, Otl Aicher and Max Bill, the latter being first Rector of the school and a former student at the Bauhaus. The HfG quickly gained international recognition and is now viewed as being second...

(Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm)

Influence

Itten's work on color is also said to be an inspiration for seasonal color 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. Shortly after his death, his designations gained popularity in the cosmetics

Cosmetics

Cosmetics are substances used to enhance the appearance or odor of the human body. Cosmetics include skin-care creams, lotions, powders, perfumes, lipsticks, fingernail and toe nail polish, eye and facial makeup, towelettes, permanent waves, colored contact lenses, hair colors, hair sprays and...

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.

External links

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