Johannes Itten

Johannes Itten

Johannes Itten was a Swiss painter. He lived from 1888 till 1967. The thing where he is the most famous for is the ’farbkreis’ (colourwheel in English). That is a colour theory that is based on three colours: blue, red, yellow. He said that you can make all colours you want if you put two of the three colours by each other with paint.

His life

He was born in Südern-Linden in Switzerland. When he was sixteen he studied to work as schoolteacher. Later he studied at the ‘Bern-Hofwil teacher academy.’ When he was finished with his study he worked at the Bauhaus (an art college in Germany). He was a little bit strange because he influenced his group. The whole group had the same clothes and that kind of things. In 1922 he left the Bauhaus because a conflict. In 1924 he started as director on the Zürich art academy. Johannes Itten died in 1967 in Zürich

The colourwheel

The colourwheel was built up by three layers: the primary layer in the centre with: blue, red and yellow Itten thought that that the basic colours are. Then  you have the secondary layer around the centre with: green, orange and purple. The last one is the tertiary layer with the primary and secondary colours mixed up with each other

Johannes Itten himself