Theory of Colours (1810) is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s celebrated treatise on color, in which the great German poet challenged Newton’s purely physical account and emphasized instead the way color is perceived by the human eye and mind. Goethe records careful observations of shadow, afterimage, and contrast, and explores the psychological and moral associations of individual colors.
Though disputed as physics, the work proved deeply influential among painters and writers, who found in it a vocabulary for the experience of color. This English translation, by Charles Lock Eastlake, remains the standard one. This free EPUB download is cleanly formatted for any e-reader.