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Johannes itten Biography

Johannes Itten

(Süder-Linden, 1888-Zurich, 1967) Swiss painter.He was closely associated with the German school known as the Bauhaus, of which he was one of its founding members.

He began his studies in 1904, and entered a seminary on teachers in Bern.After these, he worked as a teacher.In keeping with his heterogeneous taste, he enrolled in courses in mathematics and natural sciences, which had great influence when he was later commissioned to direct the "Vorkus" or preparatory course for studies at the Bauhaus.

Johannes Itten

In 1913 he moved to Stuttgart, where he received drawing and painting classes at the city's Academy of Art, where he followed the courses taught by Adolf Hoezel.The same year that he moved to Vienna, in 1916, he came into contact with the artists gathered around the publication called Der Sturm (The Storm), with whom he exhibited his first works.Until his installation in Weimar to attend to Walter Gropius' request that he be part of the Bauhaus faculty (1919), he opened an art school in the Austrian capital in which he combined his artistic teachings with a pseudo-philosophy influenced by the oriental.

His stay at the Bauhaus was short, between October 1919 and March 1923, but of tremendous importance for the history and subsequent development of the school, as he was responsible for the preparation of its preparatory course, a semester that guided the students before they decided which workshop they wanted to enter.The pedagogical plan developed by Itten was influenced by the ideas of the architect Otto Barning, and has served as a model from then until today.

This course, known as Vorkus , introduced the student to experimentation with the most diverse materials and then alien to plastic practices: steel, rope, textile material, photographs, wood or crystal.On the other hand, Itten was one of those responsible for the fact that, in terms of abstraction, the Bauhaus opted for a geometrizing trend in its interpretation.Apart from being in charge of this initial course, Itten directed various workshops until 1923, those of metal, mural painting and glass painting, in some of which he collaborated with Georg Muche.

A very important aspect in the profile of the Swiss creator is his interest in mysticism and oriental theories.When he moved to the Bauhaus in 1919, some of his students followed him as disciples.His group was characterized by shaved hair to accentuate the geometricity of the head, they wore tunics to the feet and ate only porridge.The year after his arrival at the German school, Itten and his disciples adopted the oriental doctrine mazdaznan, a doctrine that they were in charge of practicing and spreading in the school and that was responsible for the abandonment of it by Itten.

In March 1923, together with a small group of students, he secluded himself in a Mazmadan center in Switzerland, and remained there until he founded his own Mazdeist center in Berlin in 1926.The Modern School of Art, better known as the Itten School, In which he taught painting classes until 1934, it was closed with the rise to the German government of the National Socialist party.Due to his experience in the textile sector, the result of his time at the Bauhaus, he was appointed director of the Textile School in Krefeld.

After a period of inactivity during World War II, Itten directed from 1952 to 1953 the Zurich Museum and School of Arts and Crafts.He was also in charge of the organization and direction of the Rietberg Museum of Art in the same city (1950-1956).Until his death in Zurich in 1967, Itten dedicated himself to writing his theories on art and pedagogy.

The Four Seasons, by Johannes Itten

The Itten's work is characterized by its chromatic richness and its taste for abstraction, although it addresses figurative themes such as landscapes or figures.His brightly colored and highly contrasting works are the result of his research on the different psychological values ​​that he associated with each color.In works such as Ascension and Pause (1919, Zurich Art Museum) he manages to confuse a formal geometric ensemble with a vibrant color that increases the feeling of dynamism emanating from the work.In others, such as Children's Painting (1921-1922, Zurich Art Museum), Itten proceeds to geometrize the figures to present an altarpiece in which an avant-garde vision of a recurring theme in the history of art.

Itten carefully studied the works of the old German and Flemish masters, and made numerous geometric studies on their composition, which he later translated into simplified versions in which he sought the sensation of rhythm that these works generated in the viewer.An example of this is his study of the Adoration of Master Franke , a work of the German Gothic that, as in his famous studies of Cardos, the Swiss creator solved in a simple and deeply dynamic way.

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