this inexpressible delight
“The eye needs color as it needs light. We may recall our feeling of refreshment when the sun breaks through the clouds to flood a part of the landscape with light and make its colors visible. The belief that colored jewels have healing powers may be a result of the deep feelings aroused by this inexpressible delight.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from his Farbenlehre, or Theory of Color, 1808. Translated and edited Douglas Miller, 1988.
We see the heights of heaven
“We see the heights of heaven and the distant mountains as blue. Likewise, a blue surface seems to recede from us.
Just as we like to pursue a pleasant object retreating into the distance, we also like to look at blue—not because it attacks us but because it draws us along.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from his Farbenlehre, or Theory of Color, 1808. Translated and edited Douglas Miller, 1988.
the color cast over heaven and earth on the day of judgement
“History provides many examples of how rulers have coveted purple. Surroundings in this color are always serious and magnificent.
Purple glass shows a well-lit landscape in an awe-inspiring and terrible light. This must be the color cast over heaven and earth on the day of judgement.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from his Farbenlehre, or Theory of Color, 1808. Translated and edited Douglas Miller, 1988.
orange embroidered with purple
“In clothing we associate the character of the color with the character of the person. Thus we can observe how single colors and combinations of color are related to complexion, age, and social class. . . .
The Roman emperors were extremely jealous of their purple. The robe of the Chinese emperor is orange embroidered with purple. His servants and members of religious orders are allowed to wear lemon-yellow.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from his Farbenlehre, or Theory of Color, 1808. Translated and edited Douglas Miller, 1988.
“fool’s colors”
“Yellow with green is always mundane but cheerful, while blue with green is always mundane but disagreeable; this is why our forebears called the latter “fool’s colors.””
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from his Farbenlehre, or Theory of Color, 1808. Translated and edited Douglas Miller, 1988.
a futile struggle to produce green
“Looking at blue and yellow together . . . will involve the eye in a futile struggle to produce green; i.e., it will never come to rest in one color or reach a sense of totality in the whole.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from his Farbenlehre, or Theory of Color, 1808. Translated and edited Douglas Miller, 1988.
the eye and the soul come to rest
“The eye finds a physical satisfaction in green. When the mixture of the two colors which yield green is so evenly balanced that neither color predominates, the eye and the soul come to rest on the mixture as if it were something simple. We cannot and will not go beyond it. Thus green is often chosen for rooms where we spend all our time.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from his Farbenlehre, or Theory of Color, 1808. Translated and edited Douglas Miller, 1988.
a creation of light
“As a creation of light, the eye does everything that light itself can do. Light gives to the eye what is visible, and the eye gives it to the whole man. The ear is silent, the mouth is deaf, but the eye perceives and speaks. In the eye the world is mirrored from without, the man from within. The totality of what lies within and without is completed by the eye.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from an early draft of his Farbenlehre, or Theory of Color, 1808. Quoted in a footnote by editor Douglas Miller, 1988.
“in reality there is no white, or black . . .”
“Democritus, after having stated that ‘in reality there is no white, or black, or bitter, or sweet,’ added: ‘Poor mind, from the senses you take your arguments, and then want to defeat them—Your victory is your defeat.’”
—Hannah Arendt, in a footnote from The Human Condition, 1958.
diamond nailheads
“The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before him rose the black night of Space, like a wall. His mighty bulk towered rugged and mountain-like into the zenith, and His divine head blazed there like a distant sun. . . .
When the Creator had finished thinking, He said, ‘I have though. Behold!’
He lifted His hand, and from it burst a fountain-spray of fire, a million stupendous suns, which clove the blackness and soared, away and away and away, diminishing in magnitude and intensity as they pierced the far frontiers of Space, until at last they were but as diamond nailheads sparkling under the domed vast roof of the universe.”
—Mark Twain (1835–1910), the opening of Letters from the Earth. From the collection Letters from the Earth, 1962.