Customer Service 703-661-1594

Seeing Colour

A Journey through Goethe’s World of Colour

Paperback
February 2023
9781782507802
More details
  • Publisher
    Floris Books
  • Published
    14th February 2023
  • ISBN 9781782507802
  • Language English
  • Pages 176 pp.
  • Size 8.2" x 9.45"
$40.00

“Goethe’s emphasis on color experience reflected his confidence that true understanding of color can only occur once we possess the requisite capacities. In this way, Goethe’s science was deeply concerned with education as formation. We learn to see colors; indeed, we learn to see nearly everything. As Goethe wrote: ‘Every object, well contemplated, opens a new organ in us.’ In this sense, education in concerned with the formation of the human being.

“Löbe, Rang, and Vine invite us on a journey into a world of color experience. In joining them, we undertake the important project of shaping new capacities by which we can know our world more fully.” —Arthur Zajonc (from the foreword)

Color is everywhere. From blue skies to red sunsets, from the first flowers in spring to the blazing leaves of autumn. But what is the nature of color?

Scientific books present a variety of mechanical explanations but this approach leaves color as a whole unexplained. In the nineteenth century, the German poet and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe investigated a wide range of color phenomena and discovered the underlying principles that govern color itself.

This lavishly illustrated book brings Goethe’s pioneering research up to date. Through descriptions of simple observations and ingenious experiments, the reader will discover a series of color phenomena that includes afterimages, colored shadows, color mixing, and prismatic and polarization colors.

Seeing Colour is a thought-provoking read for color enthusiasts and experts alike, providing an accessible route to a new way of seeing color.

Illustrated in color.

C O N T E N T S:

Foreword by Arthur Zajonc
Introduction

1. Sight and Image
2. Colors Arising from the Eye
3. Colors Arising from Colorless Media
4. Colors Arising from Colored Media
5. The Complementarity of Color Experiments
6. Sight and Colored Light
7. The Order of Colors

Conclusion

“The Experiment as Mediator between Object and Subject” by Goethe
“A Bibliographical Essay on Goethean Approaches to Color Science”

Acknowledgements
Picture Credits
Endnotes
Index

Nora Löbe

Nora Löbe studied painting in Dortmund, Germany, and in Dornach, Switzerland, before developing and putting together touring exhibitions dealing with Goethe’s theory of color. She is a freelance artist and works at the Swiss Science Centre Technorama in Zurich, Switzerland.

Matthias Rang

Matthias Rang studied physics in Freiburg, Germany and Berlin before becoming a visiting researcher in the field of nano-optics at the University of Washington, Seattle. He received a PhD from the University of Wuppertal, Germany. At the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, where Rang co-leads the Natural Science Section, he carries out research on Goethe’s theory of color in relation to physical optics.

Troy Vine

Troy Vine completed a PhD in particle physics at University College London, with research undertaken at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago. He is currently undertaking a PhD in philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin, with a thesis focusing on methodology and ontology in the color investigations of Descartes, Newton, Goethe, and Wittgenstein. Vine is an Associate Researcher at The Field Centre in the UK.