Dirty Light - Marko Ciciliani

Fig. 1.2: Goethe’s colour wheel
Colour and sound do not admit to being compared together in any way, but both can
be referred to a higher formula. However, they can both be derived, each for itself,
from this higher law. They are like two rivers which have their source in one and the
same mountain, but consequently pursue their way under totally different conditions
in two totally different regions, so that throughout the whole course of both no two
points can be compared. Both are general elementary effects acting according to the
general law of separation and tendency to union, of undulation and oscillation, yet
acting in wholly different provinces, in different modes, on different elementary
mediums, for different senses. 52
1.1.11 Summary
Since Antiquity there has been an unbroken stream of colour-pitch discussion. At no point,
however, has there been any consensus on a particular analogy, although Aristotele’s and
Newton’s colour-pitch theories had a long-lasting influence. Until Goethe’s Farbenlehre all
theories resulted from observations in optics, music-theory, acoustics, but also astronomy or
even alchemy. Up to that point colour-pitch analogies based on synaesthesia as spontaneous
emotional reactions never played a role. Until the first half of the 18 th century the general idea
of colour-pitch analogies was commonly accepted. Only after 1725 critical comments can be
found that questioned the very basic compatibility of the two. The most intense discussion
took place in the 18 th century in France and culminated in Castel’s research. After Castel’s
death in 1757 the discussion in France rapidly faded away and moved to Germany and to a
lesser extent to England.
52 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1810/1951): Farbenlehre, Weimar: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher
Leopoldia, Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft, Vol.4, 271.
18