"I discovered soon that teaching has the handicap of retrospection. And that I don't believe in. So I started instead a method of handling material with the material itself. So that was my main change. Whereas Itten before (Itten left the Bauhaus in 1923 and Albers followed him as art teacher, ed.) had only spoken about the appearance, "matiere" - (the French word) and I said I would turn from "matiere" - the outside - to the inside, to the capacity of the material, before the appearance. And that changed the attitude basically I think."