Bauhaus Artist Blog

Johannes Itten
Born in Surdern-Linden, Switzerland, Johannes Itten is a Swiss
expressionist painter and one of the most influential figures in
Bauhaus history. He was trained as an elementary school teacher and
was taught methods and ideas of psychoanalysis by Friedrich Frobel.
At the Bauhaus, Itten taught colour, composition, materials and
characteristics. Itten theorized seven categories of colour contrast and
developed multiple exercises to use in his teachings. These exercises
included but not limited to contrast by hue, contrast by value,
contrast by temperature, contrast by compliments, simultaneous
contrast, contrast by saturation and contrast by extension.
Itten’s exploration of colour led to the inspiration for Seasonal Colour
Analysis, a term used in the cosmetics and fashion industry, that’s still
used to this day, to describe methods of verifying colours of make-up
and clothing that matches a person’s skin completion including hair and eye colour.

With this established knowledge and his exercises, he

created Farbkreis, a wheel of colours assorted in a
spectrum from dark to light colours and named from
primary to secondary colours. The middle section is six
triangular shapes forming a hexagon that serves as
instructional guide on how the colours can mix to create
different ones.
His work and inventions of colour influenced the art
movement Op Art. A movement base on making abstract
optical illusions full of swelling, warping and vibrating
patterns.

Circles by Johannes Itten

This painting by Itten is intriguing because of its simplistic
intricacy. The circles are full of randomly placed colours locked
in a circular structure in an almost pattern like fashion.

The top circle has two types of shading and tone in the
colours; one side is full of bright oranges, yellows and pinks
and the other is filled with dark reds browns and greys. The
painting seems like an experiment on colour placement and how you can utilize them in your own
paintings.