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Goethe’s Theory of Colours

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Blue

778.

As yellow is always accompanied with light, so it may be said that blue still brings a principle of darkness with it.

779.

This colour has a peculiar and almost indescribable effect on the eye. As a hue it is powerful, but it is on the negative side, and in its highest purity is, as it were, a stimulating negation. Its appearance, then, is a kind of contradiction between excitement and repose.

780.

As the upper sky and distant mountains appear blue, so a blue surface seems to retire from us.

781.

But as we readily follow an agreeable object that flies from us, so we love to contemplate blue, not because it advances to us, but because it draws us after it.

782.

Blue gives us an impression of cold, and thus, again, reminds us of shade. We have before spoken of its affinity with black.

783.

Rooms which are hung with pure blue, appear in some degree larger, but at the same time empty and cold.

784.

The appearance of objects seen through a blue glass is gloomy and melancholy.

785.

When blue partakes in some degree of the plus side, the effect is not disagreeable. Sea-green is rather a pleasing colour.

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