Goethe's Visual World

Goethe's ideas on colour and imagery crossed many borderlines: those of artistic processes and philosophical aesthetics, art history and colour theory, together with the science of perception. This investigation into his writings ranges across art from Antiquity, the Renaissance and the eighteenth century, as well as exploring the centrality of these issues to Goethe's literary work. Questions find answers, but also raise new questions. This systematic sequence of essays, originally written between 1999 and 2011, appeals to readers in all these separate areas, while drawing together their essential coherence.

Pamela Currie

Introduction 1. Goethe's Mental Images 2. Ambiguous Figures in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre 3. Specular Moment: Moment for Reflection 4. Goethe's Green: The 'Mixed' Boundary Colours in Zur Farbenlehre 5. Harmoniespiel der Farben': Goethe, Meyer and Pietro da Cortona 6. Classical Colour Harmony: Goethe and Heinrich Meyer on Jacques Louis David and his Pupil Gottlieb Schick, an 'emporstrebenden jungen Maler' in Rome 7. Mannigfaltigkeit des Farbenspiels': Goethe and Heinrich Meyer on Harmony through Colour Variation 8. An Alternative Antiquity? Ornament in Goethe, Meyer and Giulio Romano