In the Basic Course at the Bauhaus exercises with materials and textures
were developed around long lists of the various materials, such as wood,
glass, fabrics, bark, furs, metals, and stones. Contrasts such as smooth-
rough, hard-soft, light-heavy had not only to be seen, but also felt. Itten
always laid particular stress on the comprehension by the senses of the
typical properties of all objects.
At the Bauhaus, he had long chromatic series of material samples made
for the tactile assessment of the various textures. The students had to feel
these sequences of textures with their fingertips, their eyes closed. After a
short while their sense of touch improved dramatically. They began to
rummage through their grandmothers' chests of drawers for the odd
treasures hoarded for a lifetime, through kitchens and cellars; they
ransacked the artisans' workshops, and the rubbish dumps of factories
and building sites. The whole environment was rediscovered - rough
pieces of wood and wood shavings, steel wool, lengths of wire and rope,
polished wood and sheep's wool, feathers, glass, and tin foil, grids and
weaves of all kinds, leather, fur, and shiny tin cans. Manual skills were
discovered and new textures found. It was the beginning of a period of
fantastic 'handicraftsmanship', and the newly- awakened sense of
discovery found inexhaustible treasures of textures and possibilities of
combination. The students observed that wood could be fibrous, dry,
rough, smooth, or grooved, that iron could be hard, heavy, shiny or mat. In
the end they searched for the means by which these texture qualities
could be represented. These studies were of great value to future
architects, craftsmen, photographers, commercial artists and industrial
designers (Fig 2).
Fig 2 A piece of wood drawn from memory (Leudesdorff-Engstfeld,
Weimer, 1922)
This work with texture taught the student to characterize as textures
phenomena of the environment, which, without these exercises, he would
never have recognized as such. Various objects, regularly repeated,
acquire the expression of textures. A railroad station, a crowd, a big city, or
a market each makes a new kind of representation possible. Photography
is an important medium, which helps to expand the perception of nature. In
a photomontage the motifs, kaleidoscope-like, produce new textures.
Houses, bridges, roads, barrels of tar, machine parts encourage new
combinations. Photomicrography opens up an unlimited number of new
possibilities.
