Johannes Itten (1888–1967) entered the history of culture of the 20th century as the greatest explorer of color in art and as a representative of that innovative generation of artists and architects who managed to create the famous Bauhaus with its fundamentally new system of art education and an international composition of teachers and students, future creators modern style in the culture of the XX century. The names of the ideologists of the Bauhaus, to whom he owes his world fame, are V.Gropius, L.Mies van der Rohe, G.Mayer, V.Kandinsky, P.Klee, I.Itten, as well as the names of his graduates L.Mokhoy-Nagy, M. Breuer, M. Bill, are somehow familiar to anyone who would like to consider himself a modern or educated person.
Ittenu holds a special place in this constellation of creative personalities as being directly involved in the creation of the most significant innovation of the Bauhaus - its “forte”, which fundamentally changed the methodology of art education. As in the Russian Higher Art School, the creators of the Bauhaus sought to overcome the old artisan approach to educating artists, when each of them was formed within a closed workshop system of “fellows” in types of art and workshops, each of which was taught to work with a particular material. The new Bauhaus educational program was designed in such a way that all students, regardless of whether they were preparing to become architects, artists or designers in the field of furniture, textiles, printing or other specialties, had to begin their studies from the courses in front of them.
Itten was one of his first teachers. He took upon himself the task of preparing and leading one of the most complex and completely new in his methods lecture and practical course, which was to develop the students' mastery of form and color as the main, universal categories of any kind of creativity.
The book “The Art of Color” was written by Itten on the basis primarily of these classes, which he actually conducted for fifty years of his life, both in Bauhaus and in his private schools in Vienna and Berlin, and then in art institutes in Krefeld and Zurich.
Itten’s first Art of Color book was published in 1961 in landscape format, with a large number of color illustrations of world art works. However, in the process of its preparation, Itten felt the need to publish this book more accessible to all, including students. So a second version of her presentation appeared, with the detailed title “The Art of Color. Subjective perception and objective knowledge as a path to art. Training course". Immediately after the publication of the book, Itten was translated into English, French, Italian, Japanese and other languages. It received such wide recognition that it acquired the meaning of the “alphabet of color,” without which the development of the color culture of modern man is no longer conceived. The same version of the book was taken for its publication in Russian, which is carried out for the first time.
In Russia, the book of Itten also attracted the attention of artists, and above all practitioners and teachers working in the field of architecture and design. Its main popularizer was the so-called “Senezhskaya studio” of advanced training at the Union of Artists, where several seminars were specifically devoted to the study of the color theory of Itten, and Bauhaus from an abstract historical concept turned into a completely tangible concrete phenomenon.
An original color constructor created by Itten in the early 1920s (a color ball, a circle and a color star), as well as an indisputable connection of color with a particular shape, for example, red with a square, yellow with a triangle, recorded in his studies, blue - with a circle, became a key to creative mastering the mysteries of color. The technique of color analysis and color design, developed by Itten, opened up the possibility of creating a myriad of harmonious color combinations and control over the correctness of a particular color choice. It began to be especially actively used in design, in its experiments with new materials and technologies, and undoubtedly influenced the color culture of modern television, computer graphics and polygraphy.
However, the meaning and value of the book of Itten is not only in direct practicality and the use of a color constructor as an excellent “tool” that helps to find the right color solutions. Itten's color theory is not limited to these goals. His attitude to color as a natural phenomenon ingeniously constructed within oneself, with its own internal energy, not yet fully studied by us, has its own ideological basis. It is no coincidence that the book of Itten begins and ends with a reference to the ancient Indian Vedas. Itten's interest in Mazdaism, philosophy, culture and art of ancient India, China and Japan, which appeared in his youth, undoubtedly influenced his attitude to himself, to his activities, to life in general, and to the search for enduring objective values in art, who made so intent on doing color research. And the meditations, from which his classes began with the students, taught him to subordinate his body to the spiritual contemplation of the world. And this awakened a very special sense of the integrity and rationality of the universe, without which it is difficult to attain the highest spirituality.
The value of the color theory of Ittena lies precisely in the fact that he managed to go beyond studying the actual physical properties of color. The fact that Itten was an artist and in his study of color was based on the material of art, unusually expanded the range of his observations and conclusions. Thanks to the constant appeal to the works of old masters and the works of contemporary artists, Ittenu managed to find and explain patterns of life of color that are difficult to distinguish outside the sphere of art. These include the seven types of color contrasts analyzed by him, without which the construction of a pictorial canvas is unthinkable, as well as questions of the symbolic meaning of color, its connection with the form and possibilities of emotional impact.
Having devoted practically his whole life to creating a universal color theory, arising from the need to know the nature of color and understand the mechanism of its action in art, Itten proceeded from the fact that everyone who is associated with color in his professional activity needs the disciplining power of knowing the patterns of its manifestations. And regardless of the presence of talent and the innate sense of color that some people have, it always helps to overcome their uncertainty when choosing a color solution. However, at the same time, Itten stressed that knowledge and following it should not restrain the artist’s intuitive impulses, since only the interaction of the two can lead to the creation of a work animated by human energy. And this, too, like the color itself, is a manifestation of the forces of nature, without which further movement in art is impossible.
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