Mémé Bartels, Kunst der Farbe (after Johannes Itten)

Kunst der Farbe

A poster, that is part of a package of 3 books and 1 poster
Size: 29,7 x 42 cm
Edition: 50
Publication date: September 2023
Price package: €60
Price individual poster: € 10

The poster
Kunst der Farbe

When I was a teenager, the inside of our house was repainted. My father wanted colour and nothing was too crazy. I was allowed to choose the colours of my room myself. I immediately knew which ones I preferred. Yellow, purple and orange had to do the job and I made sure that the painters carried out my wish and did not, encouraged by my mother, choose a more sensible option. The bookcase that my desk was attached to was painted yellow. The walls turned purple and orange and I painted a table yellow myself. Without me knowing, I was applying Joseph Ittenn's cold-warm contrast.

All these years I was happy in my teenage room.
With 'Kunst der Farbe' Johannes Itten wrote his colour theory, which revolves around colour contrasts, with which colour harmony can be achieved. During his classes at the Bauhaus, he experimented with subjective colours, colour schemes that were created based on an individual's personal preference. He called it "a person's aura." On the last day of the first six months of my two-year weaving course, my colour aura was determined, which should be the starting point of my weaving adventure. My colours, which came from a test in which we had to choose photos from different books, were pastels according to my teacher: light blue, sand colour mint green and soft pink. The colours of the view from the holiday home by the sea, where I go once a year. However beautiful, these were certainly not the colours of my weaving ambition.

“If you apply the colour contrasts, you are always on the right track”, my teacher said by way of farewell after class. I left the building in total colour confusion. The next day I went on holiday to the sea. And there in the house on the boulevard, surrounded by the colours of my newly formed 'personal aura', I dove into Itten's colour contrasts to discover which way my weaving ambitions should go.