Johannes Itten and the Bauhaus

Par Photographie : Paula Stockmar (as mentioned at https://bauhaus.daserste.de/credits)Original téléversé par Serge Lachinov sur Wikimedia Commons . (обработка для wiki) — копия из книги Bauhaus. Bauhaus archiv. 1919-1933. Magdalena Droste. Benedikt Taschen. 1990 ISBN 3-8228-0179-8, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3909797

 

One of the main characters in the excellent German TV-series Die neue Zeit, about the Bauhaus, is a monk-looking and seldom smiling person called Johannes Itten, played by the actor Sven Schelcker.

Johannes Itten (1888 – 1967) was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the 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.

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 1919 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. And in 1920 he invited Paul Klee and Georg Muche to join the Bauhaus.

He had a considerable effect on the Bauhaus’s creative training program, and his insights into the theory of colors set standards in art and design education that are still in use today. Constantly in dialogue with students and colleagues, Itten created works in which he examined the aura, contrasts, and forms of color. Inspired by his own teacher Adolf Hölzel, Itten developed a famous doctrine of color types whose significance extended far beyond the realms of fine art into everyday culture.

Itten was a follower of Mazdaznan, a fire cult originating in the United States that was largely derived from Zoroastrianism. 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. 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 replacement by László Moholy-Nagy in 1923. 

From 1926 to 1934 he had an art and architecture school in Berlin, where Georg Muche as well as the photographer Umbo taught. The school was, as one would expect, closed by the Nazis. 

 

    

1916