190 / 198
189
“
Cet ouvrage apparut à sa publication comme un cri de protestation lancé par un poète contre les scientifiques.
(...) Aujourd’ hui que les théories modernes ont fait passer le phénomène de la lumière des cadres étroits du
matérialisme physique dans sa sphère naturelle physio-psychologique, l’essai de Goethe acquiert une nouvelle
signification : il devient un ouvrage précurseur demeuré incompris et mis à l’écart pendant un siècle et demi
”
(Laffont-Bompiani,
Le nouveau dictionnaire des oeuvres
, p. 7113).
“
Goethe’s first publications on optics culminated in his
Zur Farbenlehre
, his longest and, in his own view,
best work, today known principally as a fierce and unsuccessful attack on Newton’s demonstration that
white light is composite. Goethe supposed that the pure sensation of white can be caused only by a simple,
uncompounded substance
” (D.S.B., V, p.445).
“
[Goethe] records the phenomenon of after-images ; he uses a color wheel to define the complementary or
“opposite” colours. and he explores the complementary colour of shadows, using experiments almost identical
to Rumford’s. But these detailed observations... are placed in the service of a colour theory seriously at
variance with Runge’s and most contemporary ideas
” (Kemp, p. 297).
L’atlas est illustré de 17 planches gravées dont 12 coloriées selon les instructions de Goethe.
Bel exemplaire.
[On joint :]
Die Tafeln zur Farbenlehre und deren Erklärungen.
Leipzig, Insel, 1994.
In-8, cartonnage de l’éditeur.
Publié comme Insel-Bücherei numéro 1140.
Provenance : Bibliothèque de Posen (cachets).
First edition of this highly important work on colour theory. “
He published Zur Farbenlehre, his masterwork
on color, in his 61
st
year. Of all his writings, he considered it to be his best work
” (Burchett, p. 95-96).