The Competitiveness of Nations
in a Global Knowledge-Based Economy
H.H. Chartrand
April 2002
GOETHE’S
THEORY OF COLOURS
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN WITH NOTES
BY
CHARLES LOCK EASTLAKE, R.A., F.R.S.
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
LONDON, 1840.
The M.I.T. Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS AND LONDON,
ENGLAND, 1970
Introduction by Deane B. Judd
Deane B. Judd, Washington, D.C.,
September 1969
THE enigma of color has attracted the interest and
attention of many of the most gifted intellects of all time. Aristotle,
Grimaldi, Newton, Goethe, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Young, Maxwell, Helmholtz,
Hering, and Schrödinger all have been intrigued by color and have contributed to
our knowledge of it.
Aristotle based his view of color on the observation
that sunlight on passage through, or reflection from, an object is always
reduced in intensity, or darkened.
Since by this operation colors may be produced, he viewed color as a
phenomenon arising out of the transition from brightness to darkness, which in a
sense it is; or, stated less clearly as it usually is, Aristotle viewed color as
a mixture, or blend, or commingling, or superposition, or juxtaposition of black
and white. An essential part of
this view, widely held up to Newton’s time (1642 to 1727), is that all true and
pure light, such as light from the sun, has no color, and color must be some
sort of constituent or material permeating opaque and transparent objects and
media, capable of altering or degrading the pure light incident upon
them. Some doubts as to the
correctness of Aristotle’s view began to arise early in the seventeenth century
because of the discovery of what
v
we now name interference colors - colors of thin films,
such as soap bubbles - which change markedly with angle of view. These films seem to have every kind of
color in them at the same time and to contaminate the incident sunlight in
different ways depending on thickness of the film and direction of passage of
sunlight through it.
The discovery in 1665 by Newton that light from the sun
could be bent to varying degrees by a prism so as to produce a spectrum of
colors ranging from red (rays least bent), through orange, yellow, green, and
blue, to violet (rays most bent) provided the basis for rejecting Aristotle’s
view that color comes from objects and permitted substitution for it of the view
that color is a property of light.
This view has been supported by the great advance in our understanding of
the various physical phenomena (interference, scattering, and diffraction as
well as refraction and absorption) by which color may appear. This view is, indeed, a view widely held
today. It states that wavelength
composition of a light beam serves to define its color, and it suggests that
physics holds the key to the enigma of color.
We must pause here to make clear that this extreme view
that color is a property of light, and of light alone, though it arose among
Newton’s followers arid was based on his discovery,
vi
was not shared by Newton himself. He states in a passage, lately much
quoted, from his Opticks: “And whenever I seem to speak of radiation or
rays, coloured or imbued with colour, I should like it always so expressed that
it does not sound philosophical or special, but intelligible to the general
public; since those ideas are accepted which people, watching experiments of
this kind, can themselves comprehend.
Indeed, rays, properly expressed, are not coloured. There is nothing else in them but a
certain power or disposition which so conditions them that they produce in us
the sensation of this or that_colour.”
Newton’s view that color is a sensation is also widely held today, but,
though Grimaldi, the great Italian pioneer in optics had already expressed a
closely similar view in tile very year (1665) of Newton’s discovery, Newton’s
followers quickly forgot it.
It must not be supposed, either, that Newton is
responsible for the great oversimplification that wavelength of light determines
color. Newton’s view of light was
that it consists of corpuscles or small particles flying through space away from
every source of light. The wave
theory was not substantiated until many years after Newton’s death in 1727 by
Thomas Young (1773 - 1829) who successfully maintained from his experiments on
interference that “radiant light consists of undulations of the
luininiferous ether.” Independently
of Young, tile French physicist,
vii
Fresnel (1788 - 1827) disproved Newton’s corpuscular
theory of light by experiments supporting the view that light is due to wave
motion, and that these waves are perpendicular, or transverse, to the direction
of propagation of the waves. The
wave theory, once established, explained in a simple and brilliant way the
colors produced by scattering, diffraction, interference (for example, in thin
films), polarization, and refraction.
It became easy to ignore Newton’s view of color as a sensation, usually,
but not always, originating out of radiation, and to say simply that waves
of length 400 to 450 nm (billionths of a meter) are violet; 450 to 480, blue;
480 to 560, green; 560 to 590, yellow; 590 to 620, orange; and 620 to800 mm,
red.
To Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832), student of
the arts, theatrical director, and widely acclaimed author of the master works
Iphigenia at Taurus, Egmont, and Faust, this simple theory of
color was the result of mistaking an incidental result for an elemental
principle. His study of color
phenomena, which extended over many years, had led him to an explanation of
color more akin to that of Aristotle than to the new physics that he did not
understand. In a period of his life
described by literary critic as “a long interval, marked by nothing of
distinguished note” he wrote out a clear and sys
viii
tematic description of all of his extended observations
of color phenomena interspersed with the arguments supporting his explanation of
them. Instead of attacking the
physicists of his own day, who deserved it, for their neglect of the subjective
aspect of color, he attacked their predecessor, Newton, who did not. All of physics, he implies, had got off
to a misguided start because of its reliance on Newton. He says (Paragraph 726) : “A great
mathematician was possessed with an entirely false notion on the physical origin
of colours; yet, owing to his great authority as a geometer, the mistakes which
he committed as an experimentalist long became sanctioned in the eyes of a world
ever fettered in prejudices.” Again
(Paragraph 725): “The theory of colours. . . has suffered much, and its progress
has been incalculably retarded by having been mixed up with optics generally, a
science which cannot dispense with mathematics; whereas the theory of colours,
in strictness, may be investigated quite independently of
optics.”
Of his own theory Goethe was supremely confident. He writes in his Introduction (page
lviii): “From the philosopher, we believe we merit thanks for having traced the
phenomena of colours to their first sources, to the circumstances under which
they simply appear and are, and beyond which no further explanation respecting
them is possible.” He believed it
his duty
ix
to set everybody straight, to expose the fallacies of
the Newtonian theory by a detailed application of his own theory to all known
color phenomena, and he hoped that the medical practitioner, the investigator of
nature, the chemist, the practical dyer, and the artist would applaud his
achievement, make use of it, and push its development forward. Up to the present time, this hope has
gone largely unfulfilled.
The science of optics took little notice either of
Goethe’s attacks, or of his account of subjective color phenomena, or of the
old-fashioned, nonmathematical explanation of color contained in his Theory
of Colours published in 1810.
The physicists of Goethe’s time were of the opinion, of course, that
Goethe was the one who had mistaken an incidental result for an elemental
principle, not they, and they largely ignored him. Nevertheless, this book caused a great
stir among the many readers of Goethe’s masterpieces of fiction. According to Helmholtz (Physiological
Optics, Chapter 19, The Simple Colors): “The great sensation produced in
Germany by Goethe’s Farbenlehre was partly due to the fact that most
people, not being accustomed to the accuracy of scientific investigation, are
naturally more disposed to follow a clear artistic presentation of the subject
than mathematical and physical abstractions. ,Hegel’s natural philosophy used
Goethe’s theory of colour for its pur-
x
poses. Like
Goethe, Hegel wanted to see in natural phenomena the direct expression of
certain ideas or of certain steps of logical thought. A similar long-lasting popular interest
in England led Charles Lock Eastlake to prepare, after a lapse of 30 years and
with sympathetic and scholarly notes, his accurate and free-flowing translation
into English, here reissued.
The general public nowadays has .a considerable
understanding of, and appreciation for, the accomplishments of physical
science. In view of the fact the
Goethe’s explanation of color makes no physical sense at all, one might wonder
why it is considered appropriate to reissue this English translation of the
Theory of Colours. From what
standpoints might an intelligent and well-informed nonspecialist approach this
160-year-old book expounding a largely repudiated theory of
color?
1. Goethe’s Theory of Colours can be read, first
of all, for the beauty and sweep of his conjectures regarding the connection
between color and philosophical ideas, and for the flavor of life in Europe just
after our revolutionary war. This
book does not have to be studied to be enjoyed. Goethe’s subjective, rather
mystical, theory of colors permits him to speak most persuasively regarding
color harmony and aesthetics; it seems to make green the symbol of both heaven
and hope as opposed to red, the symbol
xi
of earthly power.
If these conjectures evoke in some readers a responsive thrill, then they
must to a degree correspond to an artistic truth. Others will regard them as pure fantasy,
charmingly stated, but valuable chiefly as an indication of early nineteenth
century beliefs and modes of thought.
2. Goethe’s Theory of Colours may be read as a
guide to the study of color phenomena.
In this book a master of prose describes the production of color by all
means available to a household in eighteenth century Weimar, and of course,
easily available here and now. He
tells what equipment (vessels, diaphragms, lenses, prisms, and so on) is
required to produce the color, he tells what to do with the equipment, and he
tells what you ought to see. Goethe
had a passion for careful observation and accurate reporting that may come as a
surprise from a theatrical director and famous author of fiction. Most of Goethe’s explanations of color
have been thoroughly demolished, but no criticism has been leveled at his
reports of the facts to be observed; nor should any be. This book can lead the reader through a
demonstration course not only in subjectively produced colors (after images,
light and dark adaptation, irradiation, colored shadows, and pressure
phosphenes), but also in physical phenomena detectable qualitatively by
observation of color (absorption, scattering, refraction, diffraction,
polarization, and interference).
xii
3. Finally, Goethe’s Theory of Colours can serve
to prepare the reader for unprejudiced consideration of new solutions to the
enigma of colors. Goethe’s own
solutions are interspersed with his directions for experiencing the colors. Some of the explanations are correct,
but most of them spring from Goethe’s own version of Aristotle’s view of color,
largely repudiated and so far unproductive. Nevertheless Goethe was a master
salesman of his own ideas. A reader
who attempts to follow the logic of Goethe’s explanations and who attempts to
compare them with the currently accepted views might, even with the advantage of
1970 sophistication, become convinced that Goethe’s theory, or at least a part
of it, has been dismissed too quickly.
For example, Goethe does not deny that light from a slit
allowed to pass through a prism permits an observer to see the succession of
colors reported by Newton: violet, blue, green, yellow,. orange, red (
Paragraph 214), but he maintains that, far from being the fundamental
phenomenon by which to explain color, it is an unimportant, incidental result of
a truly basic fact. This fact
(Paragraph 198) is that circumscribed objects must be displaced by
refraction in order to exhibit an appearance of color. The displacement, not the refraction, in
Goethe’s view, is the pertinent circumstance. If the edge of a white figure is
displaced over a dark boundary by viewing through a prism, he says (Paragraph
204),
xiii
a narrow blue edge appears next to this boundary, and a
broader blue-red border appears next to the blue edge; but if the edge of a
black figure is displaced in the same way over the light boundary, a. narrow
yellow edge appears next to the boundary and a broader yellow-red border appears
next to the yellow edge. Both types
of border colors thus tend toward red, which is, for Goethe, the most powerful
and intense of all colors. A white
area circumscribed by a dark surround, viewed through a prism, may thus give
rise to the series yellow-red, yellow, white, blue, blue-red; but if the white
area be narrowed, the yellow and blue colors can be made to overlap and produce
green. The series thus becomes
yellow-red, yellow, green, blue, blue-red, in close agreement with what was
reported by Newton. But refraction
through a prism is not necessary for these effects, says Goethe (Paragraph 239):
“. . . thus the colours produced by refraction may be fitly explained by the
doctrine of the semi-transparent mediums.
For where dark passes over light, as the border of the semi-transparent
accessory image advances, a yellow appears, and, on the other hand, where a
light outline passes over the dark background blue appears.” Furthermore, Goethe says (Paragraph
247): “Having now sufficiently investigated the exhibition in this phenomenon,
we repeat that we cannot admit it to be an elementary
phenomenon.
xiv
On the contrary, we have traced it to an antecedent and
a simpler one; we have derived it, in connexion with the theory of secondary
images, from the primordial phenomenon of light and darkness, as affected or
acted upon by semi-transparent mediums.”
Note how closely Goethe adheres to Aristotle’s view that
color arises from the transition of brightness to darkness. Note also how utterly Goethe ignores
wavelength. He never mentions the
word.
The advantage of trying to follow Goethe’s explanations
of color phenomena is that, by the time you have succeeded in doing so, your
thoughts have become so divorced from the wavelength explanation of color, that
you can begin to think about color theory relatively unhampered by prejudice,
either ancient or modern. Remember
that if an observer is in a room illuminated entirely by light from the
long-wave extreme of the spectrum, he ought, by the wavelength explanation of
color, to see nothing but objects having colors intermediate to red and
black. The observable fact is,
however, that he sees, in addition to these, pink, yellowish red, purplish gray,
and deep greenish blue objects.
Again, if the room is illuminated entirely by two kinds of spectrum
light, middle-wave and longwave, he ought, by the wavelength explanation of
color, to see nothing but black, red, green,
xv
and mixtures of them including various kinds of
yellow. Actually he sees objects
having colors of all hues including blue.
The blue is said by adherents of the wavelength theory of colors to be
caused by chromatic contrast, a subjective phenomenon; and this is another way
of admitting that wavelength is not all there is to color. Goethe knew all about chromatic contrast
(Paragraphs 47 to 50). Whenever we
try to predict what colors will be perceived to belong to objects under
non-daylight, we are likely to find that the wavelength explanation of color
falls down badly. It may be
significant that these scenes must involve, as an essential element, images of
circumscribed objects” insisted upon by Goethe (Paragraph 191). Perhaps, after 160 years, Goethe’s
mystical theory may come to be recognized as foreshadowing, however dimly, the
next important advance in the theory of colors.
INTRODUCTION
Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe
THE desire of knowledge is first stimulated in us when
remarkable phenomenon attract our attention. In order that this attention be
continued, it is necessary that we should feel some interest in exercising it,
and thus by degrees we become better acquainted with the object of our
curiosity. During this process of
observation we remark at first only a vast variety which presses
indiscriminately on our view; we are forced to separate, to distinguish, and
again to combine; by which means at last a certain order arises which admits of
being surveyed with more or less satisfaction.
To accomplish this, only in a certain degree, in any
department, requires an unremitting and close application; and we
find, for this reason, that men prefer substituting a general theoretical view,
or some system of explanation, for the facts themselves, instead of taking the
trouble to make themselves first acquainted with cases in detail and then
constructing a whole.
The attempt to describe and class the phenomena of
colours has been only twice made: first by Theophrastus,* and in modern
times
* The treatise
to which the author alludes is more generally ascribed to Aristotle - T.
li
Boyle. The
pretensions of the present essay to the third place will hardly be
disputed.
Our historical survey enters into further details. Here we merely observe that in the last
century such a classification was not to be thought of, because Newton had based
his hypothesis on a phenomenon exhibited in a complicated and secondary state;
and to this the other cases that forced themselves on the attention were
contrived to be referred, when they could not be passed over in silence; just as
an astronomer would do, if from whim he were to place the moon in the centre of
our system; he would be compelled to make the earth, sun, and planets revolve
round the lesser body, and be forced to disguise and gloss over the error of his
first assumption by ingenious calculations and plausible
statements.
In our prefatory observations we assumed the reader to
be acquainted with what was known respecting light; here we assume the same with
regard to the eye. We observed that
all nature manifests itself by means of colours to the sense of sight. We now assert, extraordinary as it may in
some degree appear, that the eye sees no form, inasmuch as light, shade, and
colour together constitute that which to our vision distinguishes object from
object, and the parts of an object from each other. From these three, light, shade and
colour, we construct the visible
lii
world, and thus, at the same time, make painting
possible, an art which has the power of producing on a flat surface a much more
perfect visible world than the actual one can be.
The eye may be said to owe its existence to light, which
calls forth, as it were, a sense that is akin to itself; the eye, in short, is
formed with reference to light, to be fit for the action of light; the light it
contains corresponding with the light without.
We are here reminded of a significant adage in constant
use with the ancient Ionian school - “Like is only known by Like”; and again, of
the words of an old mystic writer, which may be thus rendered, “If the eye were
not sunny, how could we perceive light? If God’s own strength lived not in us,
how could we delight in Divine things?” This immediate affinity between light and
the eye will be denied by none; to consider them as identical in substance is
less easy to comprehend. It will be
more intelligible to assert that a dormant light resides in the eye, and that it
may be excited by the slightest cause from within or from without. In darkness we can, by an effort of
imagination, call up the brightest images; in dreams objects appear to us as in
broad daylight; awake, the slightest external action of light is perceptible,
and if the organ suffers an actual shock, light and colours spring
forth.
liii
Here, however, those who are wont to proceed according
to a certain method, may perhaps observe that as yet we have not decidedly
explained what colour is. This
question, like the definition of light and the eye, we would for the present
evade, and would appeal to our inquiry itself, where we have circumstantially
shown how colour is produced. We
have only therefore to repeat that colour is a law of nature in relation with
the sense of sight. We must assume,
too, that every one has this sense, that every one knows the operation of nature
on it, for to a blind man it would be impossible to speak of
colours.
That we may not, however, appear too anxious to shun
such an explanation, we would re-state what has been said as follows: colour is
an elementary phenomenon in nature adapted to the sense of vision; a
phenomenon which like all others, exhibits itself by separation and contrast, by
commixture and union by augmentation and neutralization, by communication and
dissolution: under these general terms its nature may be best
comprehended,
We do not press this mode of stating the subject on any
one. Those who, like ourselves,
find it convenient, will readily adopt it; but we have no desire to enter the
lists hereafter in its defence. From time immemorial it has been
dangerous to treat of colour; so much so, that
liv
one of our predecessors ventured on a certain occasion
to say, “The ox becomes furious if a red cloth is shown to him; but the
philosopher, who speaks of colour only in a general way, begins to
rave.”
Nevertheless, if we are to proceed to give some account
of our work, to which we have appealed, we must begin by explaining how we have
classed the different conditions under which colour is produced. We found three modes in which it appears;
three classes of colours, or rather three exhibitions of them all. The distinctions of these classes are
easily expressed.
Thus in the first instance, we considered colours, as
far as they may be said to belong to the eye itself, and depend on an action and
re-action of the organ next, they attracted our attention as perceived in, or by
means of, colourless mediums and
lastly where we could consider them as belonging to particular substances. We have denominated the first,
physiological, the second, physical, the third, chemical colours. The first are fleeting and not to be
arrested; the next are passing, but still for a while enduring; the last may be
made permanent for any length of time.
Having separated these classes and kept them as distinct
as possible, with a view to a clear, didactic exposition, we have been enabled
at
lv
the same time to exhibit them in an unbroken series, to
connect the fleeting with the somewhat more enduring, and these again with the
permanent hues; and thus, after having carefully attended to a distinct
classification in the first instance, to do away with it again when a larger
view was desirable.
In a fourth division of our work we have therefore
treated generally what was previously detailed under various particular
conditions, and have thus, in fact, given a sketch for a future theory of
colours. We will here only
anticipate our statements so far as to observe, that light and darkness,
brightness and obscurity, or if a more general expression is preferred, light
and its absence, are necessary to the production of colour. Next to the light, a colour appears which
we call yellow; another appears next to the darkness, which we name blue. When these, in their purest state, are so
mixed that they are exactly equal, they produce a third colour called green.
Each of the two first-named colours
can however of itself produce a new tint by being condensed or darkened.
They thus acquire a reddish
appearance which can be increased to so great a degree that the original blue or
yellow is hardly to be recognised in it; but the intensest and purest red,
especially in physical cases, is produced when the two extremes of the
yellow-red and blue-red are
lvii
united. This is the actual state of the
appearance and generation of colours. But we can also assume an existing red in
addition to the definite existing blue and yellow, and we can produce
contrariwise, by mixing, what we directly produced by augmentation or deepening.
With these three or six colours,
which may be conveniently included in a circle, the elementary doctrine of
colours is alone concerned. All
other modifications, which may be extended to infinity, have reference more to
the application, - have reference to the technical operations of the painter and
dyer, and the various purposes of artificial life. To point out another general quality, we
may observe that colours throughout are to be considered as half-lights, as
half-shadows, on which account if they are so mixed -as reciprocally to destroy
their specific hues, a shadowy tint, a grey, is produced.
In the fifth division of our inquiry we had proposed to
point out the relations in which we should wish our doctrine of colours to stand
to other pursuits. Important as
this part of our work is, it is perhaps on this very account not so successful
as we could wish. Yet when we
reflect that strictly speaking these relations cannot be described before they
exist, we may console ourselves if we have in some degree failed in endeavouring
for the first time to define them. For undoubtedly we should
first
lviii
wait to see how those whom we have endeavoured to serve,
to whom we have intended to make an agreeable and useful offering, how such
persons, we say, will accept the result of our utmost exertion: whether they
will adopt it, whether they will make use of it and follow it up, or whether
they will repel, reject, and suffer it to remain unassisted and
neglected.
Meanwhile, we venture to express what we believe and
hope. From the philosopher we
believe we merit thanks for having traced the phenomena of colours to their
first sources, to the circumstances under which they simply appear and are, and
beyond which no further explanation respecting them is possible. It will, besides, be gratifying to him
that we have arranged the appearances described in a form that admits of being
easily surveyed, even should he not altogether approve of the arrangement
itself.
The medical practitioner, especially him whose study it
is to watch over the organ of sight, to preserve it, to assist its defects and
to cure its disorders, we reckon to make especially our friend. In the chapter on the physiological
colours, in the Appendix relating to those that are more strictly pathological,
he will find himself quite in his own province. We are not without hopes of seeing the
physiological phenomena, - a hitherto neglected, and, we may add, most important
branch of the theory of
lviii
colours, - completely investigated through the exertions
of those individuals who in our own times are treating this department with
success.
The investigator of nature should receive us cordially,
since we enable him to exhibit the doctrine of colours in the series of other
elementary phenomena, and at the same time enable him to make use of a
corresponding nomenclature, nay, almost the same words and designations as under
the other rubrics. It is true we
give him rather more trouble as a teacher, for the chapter of colours is not now
to be dismissed as heretofore with a few paragraphs and experiments; nor will
the scholar submit to be so scantily entertained as he has hitherto been,
without murmuring. On the other
hand, an advantage will afterwards arise out of this: for if the Newtonian
doctrine was easily learnt, insurmountable difficulties presented themselvse in
its application. Our theory is
perhaps more difficult to comprehend, but once known, all is accomplished, for
it carries its application along with it.
The chemist who looks upon colours as indications by
which he may detect the more secret properties of material things, has hitherto
found much inconvenience in the denomination and description of colours; nay,
some have been induced after closer and nicer examination to look upon colour as
an uncertain and fallacious cri-
lix
terion in chemical operations. Yet we hope by means of our arrangement
and the nomenclature before alluded to, to bring colour again into credit, and
to awaken the conviction that a progressive, augmenting, mutable quality, a
quality which admits of alteration even to inversion, is not fallacious, but
rather calculated to bring to light the most delicate operations of
nature.
In looking a little further round us, we are not without
fears that we may fail to satisfy another class of scientific men. By an extraordinary combination of
circumstances the theory of colours has been drawn into the province and before
the tribunal of the mathematician, a tribunal to which it cannot be said to be
amenable. This was owing to its
affinity with the other laws of vision which the mathematician was legitimately
called upon to treat. It was owing,
again, to another circumstance: a great mathematician had investigated the
theory of colours, and having been mistaken in his observations as an
experimentalist, he employed the whole force of his talent to give consistency
to this mistake. Were both these
circumstances considered, all misunderstanding would presently be removed, and
the mathematician would willingly co-operate with us, especially in the physical
department of the theory.
To the practical man, to the dyer, on the other hand,
our labour must be altogether ac-
lxi
ceptable; for it was precisely those who reflected on
the facts resulting from the operations of dyeing who were the least satisfied
with the old theory: they were the first who perceived the insufficiency of the
Newtonian doctrine. The conclusions
of men are very different according to the mode in which they approach a science
or branch of knowledge; from which side, through which door they enter. The literally practical man, the
manufacturer, whose attention is constantly and forcibly called to the facts
which occur under his eye, who experiences benefit or detriment from the
application of his convictions, to whom loss of time and money is not
indifferent, who is desirous of advancing, who aims at equalling or surpassing
what others have accomplished, - such a person feels the unsoundness and
erroneousness of a theory much sooner than the man of letters, in whose eyes
words consecrated by authority are at last equivalent to solid coin; than the
mathematician, whose formula always remains infallible, even although the
foundation on which it is constructed may not square with it. Again, to carry on the figure before
employed, in entering this theory from the side of painting, from the side of
aesthetic* colouring generally, we shall be
* Aesthetic - be1onging to taste as mere internal sense,
from [Greek not reproduced], to feel; the word was first used by
Wolf. - T.
lxii
found to have accomplished a most thankworthy office for the artist. In the sixth part we have endeavoured to define the effects of colour as addressed at once to the eye and mind, with a view to making them more available for the purposes of art. Although much in this portion, and indeed throughout, has been suffered to remain as a sketch, it should be remembered that all theory can in strictness only point out leading principles, under the guidance of which, practice may proceed with vigour and be enabled to attain legitimate results.
lxiii
adapted from notes prepared by
Susan von Finckenstein, Research &
Evaluation,
Canada Council, Ottawa,
1988
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Zur Farbenlehre (Theory of
Colours) consists of two volumes containing the following:
I
Translated into English
Beitraege zur Optik (Contributions to Optics): a lecture on prismatic
experiments, called subjective ones, i.e. experienced by the eye of the observer
made up of 47 pages with122 paragraphs published 1791;
Versuch, die Elemente der Farbenlehre zu entdecken
(Attempt to Discover the Elements of
the Theory of Colours) made up of 18 pages with 45 paragraphs published
1794; and,
Widmung an Herzogin Luise von Sachsen-Weimar und
Eisenach (Dedication to Duchess
Luise von Sachsen-Weimar und Eisenach) consisting of a 2 page letter of
January 30, 1808.
Composition:
Of this first part of Zur Farbenlehre, the
following sections have been translated into English:
Vorwort (Preface to the First Edition);
Einleitung (Introduction);
Erster Band, Erster, didaktischer Teil (First volume,
First, didactic part) made up of 920 paragraphs;
Zugabe (An addition, comments to a copy of a letter from
the painter Philipp Otto Runge); and,
Schlusswort (Concluding remarks).
II
Not Translated into
English
Enthuellung der Theorie Newtons (Explication of Newton’s Theory) - Erster Band,
Zweiter, polemischer Teil (First volume, Second, polemic part - may be left out,
if only a certain amount of text can be published).
In a note at the beginning Goethe declares - freely
translated:
“I am not too proud of my achievements as a poet. Excellent creative writers lived in my
time, even more brilliant ones before me, and there will always exist some after
my time. But that I am the only one
in my century who knows the truth about the theory of colours - that is which I
am proud of and which gives me a feeling of superiority over
many!”
Composition:
Einleitung . (Introduction) made up of 5 pages
and 14 paragraphs;
Zwischenrede (Intermediate Remarks) made up of 3
pages and 9 paragraphs;
Teil (First part) made up of 656
paragraphs
Abschluss (Conclusion - freely translated: “… we trust
to have made it clear that Newton’s hypothetical explanation and conclusions of
colour phenomena from refractions is not foo1proof.”
Vorrede des Herausgebers (Preface of the publisher) made
up of 4 pages; and,
Einleitung (Introduction) by Rudolf Steiner made up of
26 pages.