Goethe’s Theory of Colours, Part 1 - How it all started

A lecture presenting ’s Approach to Colour, in 4 parts. (Part 2 follows at ) This first part deals with Goethe’s experiments with a glass prism and the colour spectra he then observed. Part 2 deals with afterimages, simultaneous contrast and coloured shadows. Part 3 deals with colour phenomena in nature, part 4 with emotional and aesthetical aspects of colour. It is a shortened version of a lecture given at the KTH School of Architecture, Stockholm, in January 2012. Quotations are from the English translation by Charles Lock Eastlake, from 1840. More on Goethe´s colour theory and its relation to Newton´s theory of light and colour can be found on