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nydus/Goethe's Theory of ColoursPublic

This volume presents an English translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s treatise on the nature and perception of color. The work includes a collection of systematic observations and experiments alongside the author’s theoretical challenges to Newtonian optics.

Page 241 of 553
Table of Contents

GOETHE'S

extend, red and green rings. They are wide, accordingly, and no trace of a silver white space is to be seen between them. The green is produced by the blue of an imperfectly developed circle, mixing with the yellow of the first circle. All the remaining circles are, in this slight contact, broad; their yellow and blue edges mix together, thus producing a beautiful green. The red, however, of each circle, remains pure and untouched; hence the whole series is composed of these two colours.

436.

A somewhat stronger pressure separates the first circle by a slight interval from the imperfectly developed one: it is thus detached, and may be said to appear in a complete state. The centre is now a blue point; for the yellow of the first circle is now separated from this central point by a silver white space. From the centre of the blue a red appears, which is thus, in all cases, bounded on the outside by its blue edge. The second and third rings from the centre are quite detached. Where deviations from this order present themselves, the observer will be enabled to account for them, from what has been or remains to be stated.

437.

On a stronger pressure the centre becomes yellow; this yellow is surrounded by a red and blue edge: at last, the yellow also retires from the centre; the innermost circle is formed and is bounded with yellow. The whole centre itself now appears silver white, till at last, on the strongest pressure, the dark

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