THE ART OF COLOR
The Subjective Experience and Objective Rationale of Color
Johannes Itten
Johannes Itten: THE ART OF COLOR [The Subjective Experience and Objective Rationale of Color]. New York: John Wiley/Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1973 [Revised edition, later printing]. Large square quarto. Printed dust jacket. Black cloth stamped in red. 156 pp. 200 color plates. Bookstore price/inventory label to rear cover. jacket edges with trivial wear. A nice copy of a book whose pedagogical nature invariably invites abuse: a nearly fine copy in a nearly fine dust jacket.
12.25 x 12 hardcover book with 156 pages and over 200 color plates. Translated by Ernst van Hagen. A classic work on color theory. Originally published in 1960 this new 1973 edition makes use of advanced technical developments in offset printing. Some of the illustrations have been enlarged and printing veracity was improved.
Adapted from the publisher's description: "Each plate has a detailed description . . . . [and] the wide range of original student works includes studies of nature, pure forms and abstractions, as well as three-dimensional works and projects in the applied arts. In addition there are some very exciting documents on the evolution of modern art education."
Contents:
- Color Physics
- Color Agent and Color Effect
- Concord of Colors
- Subjective Timbre
- Theory of Color Design
- The Twelve-Part Color Circle
- The Seven Color Contrasts
- Color Mixing
- The Color Sphere
- Color Harmony
- Form and Color
- Spatial Effects of Color
- Theory of Color Impression
- Theory of Color Expression
- Composition
Johannes Itten ( 1888 - 1967 ) was invited by Walter Gropius to join the Bauhaus , a combination of the Weimar Art Academy and the Weimar Arts and Crafts School, in 1919. Itten was an central figure in the early Bauhaus days and an innovative teacher who employed the pedagogy of Friedrich Froebel's "education through play."
The Bauhaus and its leaders, among them Gropius, Feininger, Itten, Muche, Schlemmer, Klee, Kandinsky and Moholy-Nagy, have had a determining influence on the development of art and teaching in the United States. The Basic Course was organized by Johannes Itten as a trial period to judge the students with varying educational backgrounds who arrived from all parts of the country. Its purpose was three-fold: to determine the creative talents of the students, to help them in their choice of a career, and to teach elementary design as a basis for future careers in the arts. After successfully completing the Basic Course, the students were taught crafts in the Bauhaus workshop and at the same time were trained as designers for future cooperation with industry.
Itten describes his methods for encouraging the student to highly individual and creative uses of light and dark, material and texture, rhythm, expressive and subjective form, and colour. Each of the plates has a detailed description which will help the reader to understand the purpose of art education. The wide range of original student works includes studies of nature, pure forms and abstractions, as well as three-dimensional works and projects in the applied arts. In addition there are some very exciting documents on the evolution of modern art education.
Johannes Itten:Without Mondrian, Le Corbusier and Kandinsky it would be hard to visualize the development of art and architecture in the years around 1920. The fundamentals are contained in the work of these artists. The question of art education, however, engaged the attention of two men in particular, Johannes Itten and Paul Klee. Johannes Itten put his stamp on the preli-minary course at the Bauhaus. Itten's work here between 1919 and 1923 was unique. It was repeated by his pupils and successors and further developed by Itten himself during his periods of teaching in Berlin, Krefeld and Zurich.
Being as much a resourceful teacher as an imaginative artist, these two sides of his striking personality have always comple-mented each other. Various elements have contributed to his formation: His youthful admiration for Van Gogh, Cezanne and the Cubist Artists in Paris, and, of particular importance, the studies with Adolf Holzel in Stuttgart, where, among his fellow stu-dents, he met Schlemmer and Baumeister. Itten is not concerned with figurative or non-figurative art. His main effort is a search for the laws of color and form, harmony and contrasts, as revealed in the abstract of the Viennese period (1916-1919) as clearly as in his latest works created since his retirement as Director of the Zurich Kunstgewerbe-schule.