Theory of Colours

Synopsis

By closely following goethe's explanations of the color phenomena, the reader may become so divorced from the wavelength theory—goethe never even mentions it—that he may begin to think about color theory relatively unhampered by prejudice, ancient or modern. By the time goethe's theory of colours appeared in 1810, the wavelength theory of light and color had been firmly established. To goethe, the theory was the result of mistaking an incidental result for an elemental principle.