Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T00:54:42.310Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

V - The Theory of Colours

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2010

Get access

Summary

A year after the appearance of the Metamorphosis essay Goethe published his first work in the field of chromatics. This was the Contributions to Optics, no. I. It was followed in 1792 by a second work on the same lines, but in neither case did Goethe make any impression on the learned public, which regarded the intervention of a poet in so technical a field as out of place, and was in any case not convinced by his anti-Newtonian arguments. Goethe was not daunted however by the criticisms encountered from friend and foe alike, but continued to develop his theory for almost twenty years. In 1810, when he felt that his ideas could be experimentally demonstrated as clearly as they were ever likely to be, he published what was to remain the classic exposition of his theory, in the volume entitled Zur Farbenlehre. Didaktischer Theil. Since this resumes all that was said in the earlier Contributions, and was only amplified, not altered, by his subsequent publications, an account of its theories will cover almost all the ground required.

The way in which Goethe came to be interested in colour theories at all deserves however some preliminary attention. Even in his student days at Strasbourg they appear to have had some attraction for him, sufficient at all events for him to note down the title of a fairly specialized work.

Type
Chapter
Information
Goethe the Alchemist
A Study of Alchemical Symbolism in Goethe’s Literary and Scientific Works
, pp. 101 - 132
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010
First published in: 1952

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×