Theory of Colours () is a book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about the poet's views on the nature of colours and how they are perceived by humans. It was published in German in 1810 and in English in 1840. The book contains detailed descriptions of phenomena such as coloured shadows, refraction, and chromatic aberration. The book is a successor to two short essays titled "Contributions to Optics" ().
The work originated in Goethe's occupation with painting and primarily had its influence in the arts, with painters such as (Philipp Otto Runge, J. M. W. Turner, the Pre-Raphaelites, Hilma af Klint, and Wassily Kandinsky).
Although Goethe's work was rejected by some physicists, a number of philosophers and physicists have concerned themselves with it, including Thomas Johann Seebeck, Arthur Schopenhauer (see: On Vision and Colors), Hermann von Helmholtz, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Werner Heisenberg, Kurt Gödel, and Mitchell Feigenbaum.
Goethe's book provides a catalogue of how colour is perceived in a wide variety of circumstances, and considers Isaac Newton's observations to be special cases. Unlike Newton, Goethe's concern was not so much with the analytic treatment of colour, as with the qualities of how phenomena are perceived. Philosophers have come to understand the distinction between the optical spectrum, as observed by Newton, and the phenomenon of human colour perception as presented by Goethe—a subject analyzed at length by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his comments on Goethe's theory in Remarks on Colour and in Jonathan Westphal's Commentary on this work (1991).
Historical background
At Goethe's time, it was generally acknowledged that, as Isaac Newton had shown in his Opticks in 1704, colourless (white) light is split up into its component colours when directed through a prism.Karl Robert Mandelkow: Goethes Briefe (Goethe's Letters). 2. edition. Vol. 2: Briefe der Jahre 1786–1805 (Letters of the years 1786–1805). Christian Wegner publishers, Hamburg 1968, p. 528. "das zentrale Axiom von Newtons Farbentheorie, daß in dem weißen, farblosen Licht alle Farben enthalten seien" ("the central axiom of Newton's colour theory that there were all colours in the white, colourless light")
This experience gave him the decisive impetus to develop his own theory of colour. and by 1793 Goethe had formulated his arguments against Newton in the essay "Über Newtons Hypothese der diversen Refrangibilität" ("On Newton's hypothesis of diverse refrangibility").Karl Robert Mandelkow: Goethes Briefe (Goethe's Letters). 2. edition. Vol. 2: Briefe der Jahre 1786–1805 (Letters of the years 1786–1805). Christian Wegner publishers, Hamburg 1968, p. 528. "Bereits 1793 hat Goethe seine Einwände gegen Newton formuliert in dem Aufsatz Über Newtons Hypothese der diversen Refrangibilität (...)." ("Already in 1793, Goethe formulated his arguments against Newton in the essay Über Newtons Hypothese der diversen Refrangibilität [...].") Yet, by 1794, Goethe had begun to increasingly note the importance of the physiological aspect of colours,Karl Robert Mandelkow: Goethes Briefe (Goethe's Letters). 2. edition. Vol. 2: Briefe der Jahre 1786–1805 (Letters of the years 1786–1805). Christian Wegner publishers, Hamburg 1968, p. 553. "Diese Wendung ist bereits angedeutet in Goethes Briefentwurf an Sömmerring vom Januar/Februar 1794, der Antwort auf Sömmerrings Brief an Goethe vom 18. Januar 1794 (...): Es ist weit mehr Physiologisches bei den Farbenerscheinungen, als man denkt, nur ist hier die Schwierigkeit noch größer als in andern Fällen, das Objektive vom Subjektiven zu unterscheiden." (Italics mark citations that may only slightly have been adapted to the descriptive sentence regarding the grammar.) Translation: "This change is already indicated in Goethe's draft for a letter to Sömmerring from January/February 1794, the answer to Sömmerring's letter from January 18, 1794 (...): There is much more physiological with the phenomena of colours than one would think, just that it is even more difficult, here, to distinguish between the objective and the subjective." The letter is cited by Mandelkow after: Goethe, Die Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft. Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Deutschen Akademie der Naturforscher (Leopoldina) zu Halle von R. Matthaei, W. Troll und L. Wolf. Weimar 1949 ff (Goethe, The writings on sciences. Edited on behalf of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina at Halle by R. Matthaei, W. Troll and L. Wolf. Weimar 1949 et seq.) See: Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring "where it was even more difficult to distinguish between the objective and the subjective".Matthaei, Rupprecht. Über die Anfänge von Goethes Farbenlehre (On the beginnings of Goethe's Theory of Colours). In: Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft (Yearbook of the Goethe Society) 11, 1949, p. 259, cited in Karl Robert Mandelkow: Goethes Briefe (Goethe's Letters). 2. edition. Vol. 2: Briefe der Jahre 1786–1805 (Letters of the years 1786–1805). Christian Wegner publishers, Hamburg 1968, p. 553. "Goethes Ausgangspunkt, die Entdeckung des Newtonschen Irrtums, wie er es nannte, im prismatischen Versuch, schwand ihm aus dem Blickfeld in dem Maße, als er die Bedeutung der Physiologischen Farben zu ahnen begann." ("Goethe's starting point, the discovery of the Newton error, as he called it, in the prismatic experiment, dwindled from his horizon according to how he began to sense the meaning of the Physiological Colours.")
As Goethe notes in the historical section, Louis Bertrand Castel had already published a criticism of Newton's spectral description of prismatic colour in 1740 in which he observed that the sequence of colours split by a prism depended on the distance from the prism—and that Newton was looking at a special case.
"Whereas Newton observed the colour spectrum cast on a wall at a fixed distance away from the prism, Goethe observed the cast spectrum on a white card which was progressively moved away from the prism... As the card was moved away, the projected image elongated, gradually assuming an elliptical shape, and the coloured images became larger, finally merging at the centre to produce green. Moving the card farther led to the increase in the size of the image, until finally the spectrum described by Newton in the Opticks was produced... The image cast by the refracted beam was not fixed, but rather developed with increasing distance from the prism. Consequently, Goethe saw the particular distance chosen by Newton to prove the second proposition of the Opticks as capriciously imposed." (Alex Kentsis, Between Light and Eye)
Recently, experiments by physicist Matthias Rang have demonstrated Goethe's discovery of complementarity as a symmetric property of spectral phenomena. also a more recent reexamination of Newton's Experimentum Crucis has:
Goethe's theory
It is hard to present Goethe's "theory", since he refrains from setting up any actual theory; he says, "its intention is to portray rather than explain" (Scientific Studies). Instead of setting up models and explanations, Goethe collected specimens—he was responsible for the meteorological collections of Jena University. By the time of his death, he had amassed over 17,800 minerals in his personal collection—the largest in all of Europe. He took the same approach to colour—instead of narrowing and isolating things to a single 'experimentum crucis' (or critical experiment that would prove or disprove his theory), he sought to gain as much breadth for his understanding as possible by developing a wide-ranging exposition through which is revealed the essential character of colour—without having to resort to explanations and theories about perceived phenomena such as 'wavelengths' or 'particles'.
"The crux of his color theory is its experiential source: rather than impose theoretical statements, Goethe sought to allow light and color to be displayed in an ordered series of experiments that readers could experience for themselves." (Seamon, 1998). According to Goethe, "Newton's error.. was trusting math over the sensations of his eye." (Jonah Lehrer, 2006).Jonah Lehrer|Goethe and Color , December 7, 2006
To stay true to the perception without resort to explanation was the essence of Goethe's method. What he provided was really not so much a theory as a rational description of colour. For Goethe, "the highest is to understand that all fact is really theory. The blue of the sky reveals to us the basic law of color. Search nothing beyond the phenomena, they themselves are the theory."Quoted in translation in:
Goethe outlines his method in the essay, The experiment as mediator between subject and object (1772). It underscores his experiential standpoint. "The human being himself, to the extent that he makes sound use of his senses, is the most exact physical apparatus that can exist." (Goethe, Scientific Studies)
Goethe's chromatic understanding is embedded in a paradigm of polarity. In the preface to the Theory of Colours, Goethe explains how he tried to apply this principle — which is constitutive of his earliest convictions and study of nature.Karl Robert Mandelkow: Goethes Briefe (Goethe's Letters). 2. edition. Vol. 2: Briefe der Jahre 1786–1805 (Letters of the years 1786–1805). Christian Wegner publishers, Hamburg 1968, p. 530. "Das für Goethes gesamte Naturbetrachtung konstitutive Prinzip der Polarität gehört zu seinen frühesten Überzeugungen..., an denen er niemals irre geworden sei (Brief an Schweigger, 25. April 1814). Im Vorwort zur Farbenlehre wird es als Hauptabsicht des gegenwärtigen Werkes bezeichnet, dieses universelle Prinzip auch auf die Farbenlehre anzuwenden." (Italics mark citations that may only slightly have been adapted to the descriptive sentence regarding the grammar.) Translation: "The principle of polarity, that is constitutive for all of Goethe's study of nature, belongs to the earliest of his convictions..., that he had never lost faith in (letter to Schweigger, April 25, 1814). In the preface to the Theory of Colours, it is called the main intention of the work at hand to apply this universal principle also to the theory of colours." See Johann Schweigger
Light and darkness
Unlike his contemporaries, Goethe did not see darkness as an absence of light, but rather as polar to and interacting with light; colour resulted from this interaction of light and shadow. For Goethe, light is "the simplest most undivided most homogeneous being that we know. Confronting it is the darkness" (Letter to Jacobi).
Based on his experiments with turbid media, Goethe characterized colour as arising from the dynamic interplay of darkness and light. Rudolf Steiner, the science editor for the Kurschner edition of Goethe's works, gave the following analogy:
Goethe expresses this more succinctly:
In other words: Yellow is a light which has been dampened by darkness; Blue is a darkness weakened by light.
Experiments with turbid media
Goethe's studies of colour began with experiments which examined the effects of turbid media, such as air, dust, and moisture on the perception of light and dark. The poet observed that light seen through a turbid medium appears yellow, and darkness seen through an illuminated medium appears blue.
He then proceeds with numerous experiments, systematically observing the effects of rarefied mediums such as dust, air, and moisture on the perception of colour.
Boundary conditions
When viewed through a prism, the orientation of a light–dark boundary with respect to the prism's axis is significant. With white above a dark boundary, we observe the light extending a blue-violet edge into the dark area; whereas dark above a light boundary results in a red-yellow edge extending into the light area.
Goethe was intrigued by this difference. He felt that this arising of colour at light–dark boundaries was fundamental to the creation of the spectrum (which he considered to be a compound phenomenon).