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Excerpt
In the introduction to Goethe’s Theory of Colours, color scientist Deane Judd says (p. xii): “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.” Originally published in German in 1810, Theory of Colours was translated into English and annotated by Charles Lock Eastlake in 1840. The MIT Press edition reprints this 1840 edition, but without the index (which can be found in reprints by other publishers that are out of press).
Terminology has changed since 1840. Consequently, the aforementioned index is of little use to the 21st-century reader. However, Goethe’s illustrative anecdotes ring fresh, despite the fact that they are the first written descriptions of these phenomena. The phenomena later gained names and physiological explanations. Below I have noted some of the index items, followed by related Goethe anecdotes.
Chromatic Afterimage, Paragraph 44:
Dark Adaptation, Paragraph 9:
Hypoxia, Paragraph 129:
Light Adaptation, Paragraph 12:
Purkinje Shift, Paragraph 54:
Simultaneous Color Contrast, Paragraph 75:
Successive Color Contrast, Paragraph 52:
Similar paragraphs of interest to the meteorologist or painter could be extracted from the text. Of particular interest to the eye clinician are Goethe’s discussions of entoptic phenomena in paragraphs 89 through 135. He examines the subjective haloes reported by glaucoma patients, pressure phosphenes, color anomalies, mi-grainous phosphenes, and color changes re-ported by cataract patients.
Goethe’s Theory of Colours disputes Newton’s theory of 1704. 1 In the introduction (pp. v–xvi) to the Goethe text, color scientist Judd notes the Aristotelian foundation of Goethe’s theory and respects it for its phenomenological descriptions rather than for its grasp of 20th-century physics. More recently, Treisman 2 has considered Goethe’s dissatisfaction with Newton’s theory. Interested readers may want to investigate that article.
