Aemilius Müller

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Aemilius Müller (born December 23, 1901 in Löhningen , Canton Schaffhausen ; died March 22, 1989 in Winterthur , Switzerland ) was a Swiss color theorist, painter, writer and graphic artist. From 1940 he devoted himself to color.

Life

Since his earliest youth he was artistically gifted and active and also dealt with economics. In 1921 he graduated from the canton school Schaffhausen with the secondary school diploma . He then studied economics in Zurich , Jena and Berlin . In 1923 he studied at the Military Academy Zurich and put the brevet to lieutenant of infantry from. In the following five years he studied at the University of Zurich at the Psychotechnical Institute . With his dissertation The Psychotechnical Rationalization of the Swiss Economy , he passed the final exam. He had lived in Winterthur since 1925, and had been a citizen since 1973. In 1929 he obtained his degree in "Doctor of Economics". He then worked as an advertising manager for various companies in Zurich for the next two years . In 1931/1932 he worked as an editor at Basler Helgen , the «Basler Illustrierte Zeitung». On their behalf, he made a bike tour through Western Europe and wrote reports about it. After studying economics, he worked as an advertising manager, graphic artist, sculptor, journalist and newspaper editor. The German National Library's catalog includes journalists, economists, painters and writers.

From 1933 onwards, he continued to work in editorials and essays for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), and he also wrote articles on military bonds for the Swiss medium-sized press . He produced graphic works for various Swiss companies , including portrait drawings in red chalk , oil paintings and traditional costume drawings . In 1948 he published an illustrated edition (hand-colored with gilt edging) of 50 Spanish-European women's costumes from the 16th century based on woodcuts from Jost Amman's book on women's costumes from 1586 . In 1948 he dealt with facial impressions of important personalities ( Goehner Collection ). In 1934 he went to Vienna to study and listened to a private lecture on children's drawing by Rothe school council, about which he submitted an essay to the NZZ. In Vienna he studied some pages of the Viennese schools and dealt with musical graphics . He copied the painting Susanna in the bath by Tintoretto in the Kunsthistorisches Museum .

In 1938 he created the military publication Schweizer Schiessausbildung , which was published in two editions by Interverlag Zurich . Further literary works were 1940 Das Schweizer Schützenvolk in cultural documents at Interverlag Zürich and the collaboration with Schweizer Schützenbuch , Verkehrsverlag Zürich 1943. In the years of the Second World War 1939–1945 he was an orderly officer in the staff of the Gz Br 6. He was artistically with the impression of General Guisan active, this was then created as a full sculpture . Bronze casts were made from it for installation in Zurich, Schaffhausen and Frauenfeld .

Work on the subject of colors

In 1941 he accidentally made the acquaintance of the remaining editions of Wilhelm Ostwald's color theory and noted the "great, now internationally recognized progress" on the subject of color . As a result, he made it his life's mission to “bring the great work of the Nobel Prize winner back to life, to expand and popularize”. He set himself the goal of producing aids for color education for the widest possible range of people “in the spirit of Pestalozzi”. The didactic improvement of Ostwald's color order required the «equality of the hues in the hue circle with the correct contrasting colors and their numbering according to the clock face. The designation of the [Ostwald's] color variables v, w, s [full tone, white component, black component] in a triangle of the same color using numbers instead of letters to numerically illustrate the harmony relationships that are not so important for free but for applied art ( design ). " The "new" concept of "color inversion" was intended to help artists find the disharmonies they want for their work. It was also important for him to promote and test the “ color-flavored maturity ” in relevant professions.

Since 1941 Müller lived in an apartment in Winterthur on St. Gallerstrasse and developed his life's work. In his professional life over the next 40 years, two dozen works were created based on Ostwald's works. His aesthetic color work was mostly done in anachronistic hand coloring. This technology served the economical manufacture of his products. Müller found out at a German book publisher that a polygraphic reproduction of his school color atlas in more than 5,000 copies, since this should also be offered outside of Switzerland , would have been three times the price of hand coloring in color printing . Under his leadership, the didactic means were manually transferred in editions of up to 2500 colors, which was also morally recognized. Müller's school color atlas became the basis for teaching technical professions and color advice for architects in Switzerland with different editions of his color atlases. Müller's late work from the 1970s was Aesthetics of Color , a collection of 200 color plates that illustrate color relationships.

The color didactic works of Müller were little advertised or popularized by him and did not reach the dissemination of other color scientists. The complete works remained practically unknown even in specialist circles. Müller's color harmony theory for fine art was based on Ostwald. In contrast to his specifications, he understood his theory as a stimulus for various areas of the arts and crafts, in which the production of well-sounding color combinations is involved. On the other hand, due to Müller's orientation towards the works of Ostwald from the first third of the 20th century, the development of technology in colorimetry had gone in a different direction. The Technikum Winterthur acquired the aesthetics of color at the beginning of 1981 as the first technical school in Switzerland for its collection of presentation and design in the building construction department. For Aemilius Müller's 80th birthday, an exhibition was opened on October 2, 1981 in the Kunsthalle zum Waaghaus in Winterthur, and the aesthetic of color was made available to a wider public for the first time. The interest in specialist circles went beyond the local framework. In 1982, the Bern School of Applied Arts took over the exhibition based on the Winterthur concept. Finally, funds were found to purchase the collection. With this public relations work, Müller's long-term work, who had numerous customers in 17 countries, increasingly came to school circles; the Basel painters' association decided to purchase the larger edition and handed it over to the Basel trade school as a permanent loan. The Zurich School of Applied Arts bought a series of poster-sized panels and organized an exhibition in 1985, Aesthetics of Color - From the work of Aemilius Müller . So his creative work under "ÆM" only came to the public in old age.

Works

  • Color cards from «ÆM»
    • Swiss color sample card (1944)
    • Swiss standard color chart (2nd edition 1945)
    • 3rd edition in Leporello (1948)
    • 4th edition stapled (1959)
  • Color atlases
    • Swiss color atlas (1945), Swiss color combiner (1946)
    • Swiss color atlas special editions (12 vertical sections through the double cone)
    • Swiss Color Atlas 1210 (pocket edition)
    • Swiss Chromometer 2200 (pocket edition 1948)
    • Swiss School Color Atlas (1st edition 1946)
    • School color atlas (2nd edition 1955)
    • Mobile Color Body 743 (1953)
    • Mobile color body 1093 (1966): The Farbwerke Hoechst AG in Frankfurt a. M. published the colors of the MFK in 1993 as Color Atlas, with the recipes belonging to the nuances on BCF nylon (DuPont) Type 846
    • Swiss Color Atlas SCA 2541 (1962)
      • 1st edition (1962) with fixed color samples
      • 2nd edition (1964/65) with movable inserted color samples
      • 3rd edition (1965) with fixed glossy color samples
  • The color cubes
    • The three-color cube 1 (1951) for the graphic industry in 1000 mixes
    • The ideal color cube 125 (1952), edition in linen binding, edition with loose plates
    • The ideal color cube 343 (around 1975)
  • The color determiners
    • Color determiner 1500 (1948)
    • Color determiner GUG 2000 (1958)
    • Color determiner GUG 12000 (1958)
    • Mobile GUG 1555 (1957)
  • Writings and materials on color theory
    • The ABC of Colors (1944), 133 pages, format 17.5 × 10.5 cm, 37 illustrations, a hand-painted twelve-part color circle, Verlag Gebr. Scholl AG, Zurich
    • Study dyes: Standard assortments of 12 bright colors and black in powder or liquid form
      • STUFA mixture tables (1954)
      • Color mixing gauge for the STUFA palette (1956)
    • Practical color theory (1961) for school, work, industry and trade
    • Swiss school wall table the color (1963)
    • A life for color with color (1975), review of one's own life's work
    • Quo Vadis Harald Küppers? - On the catastrophic uncertainty of the German color teaching scene. Chromos-Verlag, Winterthur 1980 (a critical examination of the theory of colors by Harald Küppers)
  • further and commissioned work
    • 300 hand-colored slides on color theory (1942)
    • Swiss phototechnical spectral board (1947)
    • Ektachrome filter color card
    • Transparent color mixer 1000 (three turntables in 10.5 / 12.5 / 14.5 cm with filters in ten saturation levels each)
    • Labitzke printing color chart (1950)
    • Color plate 156: Police color card (1955)
    • The regular color system MCC 100
    • The equalized STUFA color circle
    • Same color triangle 60 (around 1975)
    • Spectral galaxy (around 1975), 12 variations of the "spectrum" (1984)
    • Systematic color sense tester: for examinations of color quality in companies
  • Materials for the theory of color harmony
    • The modern theory of color harmony (1948)
    • Decorative color card (1956)
    • The taste of colors (1958): essay on the interpretation, testing and formation of taste in colors
    • Aesthetics of Color (1973) in natural harmonies. 200 representations from the cosmos of colors: colors of the same value, colors of the same shade, colors of the same color, rows of light, rows of darkening, rows of fog, shifts in color

The publications were made primarily through Chromos-Verlag Winterthur . A list of works can also be found in Roy Osborne: Books on Color 1495–2015: History and Bibliography . Online in Google Book Search

"With the publication of the publications" Practical Color Theory "and" Elementary Color Theory "as well as the free delivery of the school mural" Color "to the Swiss schools, Aemilius Müller created important prerequisites for the dissemination of reliable knowledge about the phenomenon of color."

- Werner Spillmann: A life for color - The work of Dr. Aemilius Müller, Winterthur.

estate

Aemilius Müller's estate is in the collections of the Winterthur libraries and is part of the Werner Spillmann color collection, which he donated to the library in 2014. It can be viewed in the Winterthur Collection in the City Library.

Source and literature

This lemma is a magazine article in Farbe + Design (specialist journal for the practice of using and designing with color in all areas - interior design and architecture, industrial design, textile film, printing, lighting, graphic design, etc. - information on the basics and application) by Werner Spillmann. In Spillmann's work, the information on Aemilius Müller's curriculum vitae comes from Müller himself at the age of 80.

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Lexicon on Art in Switzerland
  2. ^ Online archive catalog of the Basel-Stadt State Archives
  3. ↑ 50 of these were later purchased by the State of Israel
  4. ↑ When light and dark get out of balance . In: color impulses. April 23, 2008.
  5. ↑ «I had no idea about a Dr. Aemilius Müller in Winterthur, who for many years now has taken up my father's work with surprising understanding, spread it, expanded it and adapted it to practical use. […] With heartfelt envy, I saw your beautiful paints […] I can now die in peace, the matter is in good and strong hands […] »(Grete Ostwald, daughter of Wilhelm Ostwald, 1960)
  6. ↑ Compare the work of Harald Küppers and the controversy in Müller's book Quo Vadis Harald Küppers?
  7. ↑ «The admirable life's work of Dr. Aemilius Müller (ÆM). It will occupy an important place in the history of color theory and its illustration. " (Werner Spillmann)
  8. ↑ Online in Google Book Search
  9. ↑ In: Color + Design. 33/34, see source
  10. ^ Website of the Winterthur Collection. Retrieved September 3, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Lecturer for architectural representation, color design, art history in the building construction department, Technikum Winterthur, speaker of the CRB color courses
personal data
SURNAME Müller, Aemilius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES AEM
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss color scientist
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Löhningen
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1989
Place of death Winterthur