Goethe's Theory of Colours;

1840. GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von. Goethe's Theory of Colours; Translated from the German, with notes by Charles Lock Eastlake. xlviii, 423 pp., illustrated with four lithographic plates (3 with hand colouring). 8vo, 220 x 135 mm, bound in original cloth. London: John Murray, 1840. First Edition in English, inscribed to William Allan R.A. by the publisher. Goethe's work 'Zur Farbenlehre' was first published in 1810, and was the first to describe the psychological effects of colour. "For a profoundly creative and challenging response to Goethe's science by a painter of real genius we have to look to Britain, to the art of Turner. Turner was almost seventy by the time he made his detailed study of Goethe's Farbenlehre in Charles Eastlake's 1840 annotated translation, but his response was not that of an old man rigidly set in his ways. Two complex paintings of supreme quality were the remarkable result of his 'dialogue' with Goethe. His immediate reactions on reading Goethe's treatise are contained in a series of marginal notes in his copy, ranging from approbatory references to terse exclamations of disagreement. 'Poor Dame Nature' he wrote, when he felt that Goethe was doing less than justice to the ultimate source of all visual beauty. He was attracted by much of what the German author was saying, particularly with respect to the integral relationship of colour and tone, but suspicious of the more rigid prescriptions and hesitant in the face of the anti-Newtonian polemics... (Kemp, The Science of Art, p. 299). Rebacked, with part of the original spine laid down. See also R. L. Herbert, Yale Library Gazette, (July l974), pp. 6-7. Buckley, Color theory, p. 128. Babson 151. Birren Collection. 271. Not in Edelstein. Not in Wurmfeld, Color documents. Ruhemann/Plesters, p. 457 with an interesting note. Finally, see D. Robertson, Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian art world, pp. 54-55.