JOHANNES ITTEN: THE SEVEN COLOR CONTRASTS

Seven color contrasts are considered in the article; they were described in the book «The Elements of Colour» by Johannes Itt en. In the fi rst part the theory of color contrasts is perceived to be a specifi c phenomenon, which shows how the colors interact with each other. In the second part of article there is the analysis of the architectural elements based on the Itt en‘s theory of color contrasts. So, the interaction of color contrasts and their infl uence on building and its perception and forms are identifi ed by the color contrasts.

Weaving Words and Drawing Lines: The Bauhaus Masters Endeavours to Establish a Universal Visual Language within Foundation Education

<p>This study investigates the roots of interdisciplinary architectural and design education and methodology in Europe and the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. In particular this thesis is concerned with the establishment of the principles of a universal visual language within this context. Walter Gropius' (1883‐1969) efforts to propagate a universal understanding of architecture, art and design at the Bauhaus is a central focus of this study along with the use of a universal visual language to facilitate such an ideal. This thesis argues that the instigation of the Bauhaus preliminary course, the Vorkurs, developed by Johannes Itten (1888–1967) and matured by Bauhaüslers Lázsló Moholy‐Nagy (1895‐1946) and Josef Albers (1888‐1976) offered vitality, integrity, creativity and longevity to Bauhaus pedagogy and posits that the beliefs and practices of the Vorkurs contributed significantly to the translation of European modern design education in the United States. Although Bauhaus pedagogical translations were refuted by some and misunderstood by others in the wholly different economic context of the United States, this study proposes that the translations of the Vorkurs methodology, by the émigré Bauhaüslers, Moholy‐Nagy at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, Albers at Black Mountain College and Yale and Gropius at Harvard contributed to the codification of modern twentieth‐century design education, and as such continues to offer relevance in current architectural and design pedagogical environments.</p>

Weaving Words and Drawing Lines: The Bauhaus Masters Endeavours to Establish a Universal Visual Language within Foundation Education

<p>This study investigates the roots of interdisciplinary architectural and design education and methodology in Europe and the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. In particular this thesis is concerned with the establishment of the principles of a universal visual language within this context. Walter Gropius' (1883‐1969) efforts to propagate a universal understanding of architecture, art and design at the Bauhaus is a central focus of this study along with the use of a universal visual language to facilitate such an ideal. This thesis argues that the instigation of the Bauhaus preliminary course, the Vorkurs, developed by Johannes Itten (1888–1967) and matured by Bauhaüslers Lázsló Moholy‐Nagy (1895‐1946) and Josef Albers (1888‐1976) offered vitality, integrity, creativity and longevity to Bauhaus pedagogy and posits that the beliefs and practices of the Vorkurs contributed significantly to the translation of European modern design education in the United States. Although Bauhaus pedagogical translations were refuted by some and misunderstood by others in the wholly different economic context of the United States, this study proposes that the translations of the Vorkurs methodology, by the émigré Bauhaüslers, Moholy‐Nagy at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, Albers at Black Mountain College and Yale and Gropius at Harvard contributed to the codification of modern twentieth‐century design education, and as such continues to offer relevance in current architectural and design pedagogical environments.</p>

Entre Itten y Gropius: algunas contradicciones culturales de la Bauhaus

Una de las contradicciones más llamativas al interior de lo que se conoce como la escuela Bauhaus se dio entre el futurismo tecnicista-humanista de Walter Gropius y el ocultismo orientalista de otros miembros, como Johannes Itten. Aunque ambos buscaban armonizar la existencia del ser humano con el entorno que habita, las teorías en las que ambas tendencias basaban sus prácticas llegaban a ser irreconciliables. Era inconcebible que el ideal artístico de Itten estuviera al servicio de la humanidad en su conjunto cuando defendía nociones protoracistas sobre la capacidad exclusiva de un grupo étnico para alcanzar dicha armonía. Muchas de estas ideas quedaron incluso plasmadas en su obra de arte y no sólo en escritos y discursos publicados. El propio interés de Itten por la cultura y el arte oriental convivió incómodamente con estas tendencias, dejando un legado ambivalente y problemático, el cual ha sido recientemente señalado por algunos estudiosos del movimiento. Aquí analizaremos algunas aristas de esta contradicción y sus implicaciones desde el punto de vista de la comparatística. Resulta necesario plantearnos cómo se deben ver estas inconsistencias si queremos evitar caer en una postura trivial y poco crítica de un movimiento cultural tan relevante como lo fue la escuela Bauhaus.

The Color Pile: Equitable Self-Expression Through Color and Abstraction

The Color Pile is a visual tool transported from the author’s art-student context, and builds on the teaching model of Connie Smith Siegel and the Color Contrast work of Johannes Itten. As re-positioned, it offers a novel path to eliciting student narratives and point of view in language-dependent learning settings. Can this playful exercise support the clear articulation of complex ideas and help generate descriptive language? The Color Pile process moves from prompt to reflection to abstract visual composition, and resolves in a verbal, written or drawn reflection. Color and abstraction may help students gain access to their full capacities for complex thought and self-expression. Could this approach provide differently equitable support for student-produced narratives and descriptive language than is afforded by viewing representational imagery? Direct observations of middle school students using the Color Pile suggest the method could be meaningful to a diverse audience of teachers and learners. Its usefulness in a broad spectrum of language-oriented learning settings is considered.

El color como mediación constructiva de la comunicación

Al ser la Bauhaus una “Escuela de la construcción”, es indefectiblemente necesario comprender que el tema del color es una resonancia en la comunicación, en la transmisión de mensajes. En este sentido, la forma debía estar asociada al color y Johannes Itten así lo entendió. Ahora bien, desde otra mirada, Josef Albers – en comunión con Kandinsky-, entiende que, dentro de una institución como la Bauhaus, no es tan importante qué se hace con el color sino cómo se utiliza el mismo. Con sus diferencias teóricas, tanto Itten como Kandisnky coinciden en la inevitable relación entre color y forma.

Elizabeth Bishop’s Pink

This article argues for the significance of the colour pink in the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. While Bishop’s interest in painting, architecture and sculpture has been widely noted, the importance of colour—and the specific resonance of pink—has hitherto been overlooked. I propose that across Bishop’s career, from early New York and Key West poems and drafts through the poetry of Brazil, such as ‘The Armadillo’, to the late great poems, ‘In the Waiting Room’ and finally, and disturbingly, ‘Pink Dog’, shades of pink operate to crucial effect. This is the case even, or especially, where pink is only tacitly registered (see, for example, ‘In the Waiting Room’ where the pink body is strategically covered by ‘gray’ clothes). Whether directly or by allusion, Bishop uses pink to suggest difference, unease and alarm, particularly in relation to gender, sexuality and the temptations and risks of self-exposure. In pursuing the point, I look to representations of pink in contemporary popular culture, to colour theory such as the work of Johannes Itten, and to the psychology and physiology of shame. By tracing the significance of pink, I suggest, we reach a better understanding of Bishop’s aesthetics of self-knowledge, subjectivity and display.

Bauhaus

The Bauhaus is a paradigmatic institution of 20th-century art, in some contexts synonymous with the aesthetic and discursive institution of modernism itself. Founded in 1919 in the city of Weimar, Germany, the Bauhaus school of design (Staatliches Bauhaus) was formed through the merger of the Weimar Grand Ducal Saxon schools of fine and applied arts by its first director, the architect Walter Gropius. Having attracted controversy and persecution in the tense political environment of the Weimar Republic, the Bauhaus was forced to relocate twice (to Dessau in 1925 and to Berlin in 1932) before it was finally shut down by the Nazis in 1933. The move to Dessau, however, gave Gropius an opportunity to design and build a new headquarters for the school, which became one of the most iconic contributions to modern architecture. The Bauhaus also lived on in a constellation of attempts to revive its pedagogical and design principles in a range of geographical contexts through the century. More than that, the “Bauhaus” has entered the lexicon of modern art as a formal and conceptual entity, a “style” and an “idea,” with a profound impact on the visual culture of our time. The Bauhaus school was a wellspring of boundary-breaking experiments across the arts, including architecture, industrial and typographic design, theater, photography, textiles, painting, and sculpture. Through the full array of its initiatives, the Bauhaus emerged as an extended interrogation of the changing status and social role of art in the age of industrial production. At its core, however, the Bauhaus was a collective invention of many gifted instructors and students, who shaped the institution as a laboratory of cooperative living, working, and learning. Studies of individual artists and designers, many with distinguished careers beyond the school (Josef and Anni Albers, László and Lucia Moholy-Nagy, Johannes Itten, Marcel Breuer, Oskar Schlemmer, Marianne Brandt, Gunta Stölzl, Hannes Meyer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Herbert Bayer, and many others) have done much to complicate Bauhaus historiography, demonstrating that its pedagogical philosophies and design approaches shifted with patterns of individual influence and undermining the notion of a cohesive and singular Bauhaus “idea.” The scope of scholarly interest in the institution is matched by the range of artistic disciplines and approaches it encompassed. This means that the extant Bauhaus literature in a plurality of languages and formats could fill a small library building. The 2019 centennial of the school’s founding has provided a fresh infusion of up-to-date scholarship.

Bauhaus e a puravisualidade

O presente artigo percorre a extensão que a teoria da puravisualidade (Sichtbarkeit) adquire nos programas e na prática pedagógica da Bauhaus, como também as tensões e as distensões desta teoria com a objetividade (Sachlichkeit), representada pela produção do arquiteto e teórico Gottfried Semper. Para tanto, as referências são os textos de Konrad Fiedler, Adolf von Hildebrand, Alois Riegl, expoentes desta primeira corrente estética de matriz neokantiana. Assim, estas obras são contrastadas com os escritos do fundador da Bauhaus, Walter Gropius, e a produção dos alunos da escola durante o curso preliminar – Vorkurs –, fundado por Johannes Itten e, depois, legado a Laszlo Moholy-Nagy e Josef Albers.