Light spectrum, from Theory of Colours – Goethe observed that colour arises at the edges, and the spectrum occurs where these coloured edges overlap. | |
Author | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
---|---|
Original title | Zur Farbenlehre |
Translator | Charles Eastlake[1] |
Language | German |
Publisher | John Murray |
1810 | |
Published in English | 1840 |
OCLC | 318274261 |
German | English | Symbolism |
---|---|---|
Purpur | Magenta (or purple) see below | Schön (beautiful) |
Rot | Red | |
Gelbrot | Orange | Edel (noble) |
Orange | ||
Gelb | Yellow | Gut (good) |
Grün | Green | Nützlich (useful) |
Blau | Blue | Gemein (mean, common) |
Violett | Violet | Unnöthig (unnecessary) |
Blaurot |
Qualities of Light | Newton (1704) | Goethe (1810) |
---|---|---|
Homogeneity | White light is composed of coloured elements (heterogeneous). | Light is the simplest most undivided most homogenous thing (homogeneous). |
Darkness | Darkness is the absence of light. | Darkness is polar to, and interacts with light. |
Spectrum | Colours are fanned out of light according to their refrangibility (primary phenomenon). | Coloured edges which arise at light-dark borders overlap to form a spectrum (compound phenomenon). |
Prism | The prism is immaterial to the existence of colour. | As a turbid medium, the prism plays a role in the arising of colour. |
Role of refraction | Light becomes decomposed through refraction, inflection, and reflection. | Refraction, inflection, and reflection can exist without the appearance of colour. |
Analysis | White light decomposes into a spectrum of all colors. | There are only two pure colours—blue and yellow; the rest are degrees of these. Citation: (Theory of Colours, Volume 3, Paragraph 208/209) |
Synthesis | Just as white light can be decomposed, it can be put back together. | Colours recombine to shades of grey. |
Particle or wave? | Particle | Neither, since they are inferences and not observed with the senses. |
Colour wheel | Asymmetric, 7 colours | Symmetric, 6 colours |
“ | First he explained to me the way the iris transforms the light into the three primary colours... then he said, 'Why yellow is the most warm, noble and closest to the bright light; why Blue is that mix of excitement and serenity, so far that it evokes the shadows; and why Red is the exaltation of Yellow and Blue, the synthesis, the vanishing of the bright light into the shadows'.[37][better source needed] | ” |
| On the catalytic moment[edit]
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