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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 365 of 553
Table of Contents

GOETHE'S

his convictions.

RELATION TO THE THEORY OF MUSIC.

747.

Before we proceed to the moral associations of colour, and the æsthetic influences arising from them, we have here to say a few words on its relation to melody. That a certain relation exists between the two, has been always felt; this is proved by the frequent comparisons we meet with, sometimes as passing allusions, sometimes as circumstantial parallels. The error which writers have fallen into in trying to establish this analogy we would thus define:

748.

Colour and sound do not admit of being directly compared together in any way, but both are referable to a higher formula, both are derivable, although each for itself, from this higher law. They are like two rivers which have their source in one and the same mountain,

365