Detail

Johannes Itten is regarded as a central figure of the early Bauhaus where he became a teacher in 1919. One year earlier he had painted the oil “Bird Theme” in Vienna. Preparatory works for the painting still exist and they show just how precisely Itten planned each pictorial element. Initially he gives the picture a mathematically constructed, harmoniously balanced structural framework. Within that he anchors the individual forms in the composition –simple, basic, geometric forms, without exception. Numbers or, rather, proportions are of great importance here. Itten achieves the optical integration of the differing artistic means and design levels by making the edges of the forms ambiguous. The eye never settles due to the application of the artistic principles of contrast and polarity. Itten’s compositional principles are founded on a philosophical concept: “My symbols, my mythologies will be forms and colours.” said Johannes Itten.