“Color is life; for a world without color appears to us as
dead.” – Johannes Itten When you take an art course on color
theory, you can thank Johannes Itten for laying much of the
foundation for what you’re being taught. Johannes Itten was a
Swiss artist and teacher who taught at the Bauhaus in Germany.
He published several books on art theory, the most popular being
The Art of Color. Sir Isaac Newton is credited with creating the
first color wheel, which included 6 colors: red, orange, yellow,
green, cyan and blue. Around 250 years later, Johannes Itten
expanded Newton’s color wheel to include 12 colors instead of 6.
These 12 colors included red, yellow and blue as the primary
colors; orange, green and purple as the secondary colors, and 6
intermediary colors created by mixing a primary color with a
secondary color. This is the same color wheel often used in
school’s today to teach students about color theory. Itten also
examined color saturation, contrast and hue, devising theories
for creating different co