Colours, as taught by Johannes Itten

Philippe Mathonnet paid a visit to the Liner Museum in Appenzell, which is currently showing an exhibition dedicated to the Swiss painter Johannes Itten, "the most eccentric of the Bauhaus professors". The journalist explains why Itten's teaching, which bears the stamp of Zoroastrianism, marked his era. "His main contribution was to analyse, to theorise how colours react in relation to one another. By constructing a vocabulary and grammar of colours, Johannes Itten allowed modern artists and designers to speak in a fully artistic language. It is he who underlined the interactions and contrasts between colours, their way of repelling one another - to be applied in creating more lively compositions. He is the one who demonstrated that warm colours appear to move forward and cold colours, back - as well as other effects. Hence, a real guru."

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