Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  584

  Lichtenberg, who of necessity followed the received theory, owing to the time and circumstances in which he lived, was yet too good an observer, and too acute not to explain and classify, after his fashion, what was evident to his senses. He says, in the preface to Delaval, “It appears to me also, on other grounds, probable, that our organ, in order to be impressed by a colour, must at the same time be impressed by all light (white).”

  585

  To procure white as a ground is the chief business of the dyer. Every colour may be easily communicated to colourless earths, especially to alum: but the dyer has especially to do with animal and vegetable products as the ground of his operations.

  586

  Everything living tends to colour — to local, specific colour, to effect, to opacity — pervading the minutest atoms. Everything in which life is extinct approximates to white (494), to the abstract, the general state, to clearness, to transparence.

  587

  How this is put in practice in technical operations remains to be adverted to in the chapter on the privation of colour. With regard to thecommunication of colour, we have especially to bear in mind that animals and vegetables, in a living state, produce colours, and hence their substances, if deprived of colours, can the more readily re-assume them.

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  XLVII. Communication, Apparent.

  588

  The communication of colours, real as well as apparent, corresponds, as may easily be seen, with their intermixture: we need not, therefore, repeat what has been already sufficiently entered into.

  589

  Yet we .may here point out more circumstantially the importance of an apparent communication which takes place by means of reflection. This phenomenon is well known, but still it is pregnant with inferences, and is of the greatest importance both to the investigator of nature and to the painter.

  590

  Let a surface coloured with any one of the positive colours be placed in the sun, and let its reflection be thrown on other colourless objects. This reflection is a kind of subdued light, a half-light, a half-shadow, which, in a subdued state, reflects the colours in question.

  591

  If this reflection acts on light surfaces, it is so far overpowered that we can scarcely perceive the colour which accompanies it; but if it acts on shadowed portions, a sort of magical union takes place with the , Shadow is the proper element of colour, and in this case a subdued colour approaches it, lighting up, tinging, and enlivening it. And thus arises an appearance, as powerful as agreeable, which may render the most pleasing service to the painter who knows how to make use of it. These are the types of the so-called reflexes, which were only noticed late in the history of art, and which have been too seldom employed in their full variety.

  592

  The schoolmen called these colours colorer nationales and intentionales, and the history of the doctrine of colours will generally show that the old inquirers already observed the phenomena well enough, and knew bow to distinguish them properly, although the whole method of treating such subjects is very different from ours.

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  XLVIII. Extraction.

  593

  Colour may be extracted from substances, whether they possess it naturally or by communication, in various ways. We have thus the power to remove it intentionally for a useful purpose, but, on the other hand, it often flies contrary to our wish,

  594

  Not only are the elementary earths in their natural state white, but vegetable and animal substances can be reduced to a white state without disturbing their texture. A pure white is very desirable for various uses, as in the instance of our preferring to use linen and cotton stuffs uncoloured. In like manner some silk stuffs, paper, and other substances, are the more agreeable the whiter they can be. Again, the chief basis of all dyeing consists in white grounds. For these reasons manufacturers, aided by accident and contrivance, have devoted themselves assiduously to discover means of extracting colour: infinite experiments have been made in connexion with this object, and many important facts have been arrived at. It is in accomplishing this entire extraction of colour that the operation of bleaching consists, which is very generally practised empirically or methodically. We will here shortly state the leading principles.

  596

  Light is considered as one of the first means of extracting colour from substances, and not only the sun-light, but the mere powerless day-light: for as both lights — the direct light of the sun, as well as the derived light of the sky kindle Bologna phosphorus, so both act on coloured surfaces. Whether the light attacks the colour allied to it, and, as it were, kindles and consumes it, thus reducing the definite quality to a general state, or whether some other operation, unknown to us, takes place, it is clear that light exercises a great power on coloured surfaces, and bleaches them more or less. Here, however, the different colours exhibit a different degree of durability; yellow, especially if prepared from certain materials, is, in this case, the first to fly.

  597

  o Not only light, but air, and especially water, act strongly in destroying colour. It has been even asserted that thread, well soaked and spread on the grass at night, bleaches better than that which is exposed, after soaking, to the sun-light. Thus, in this case, water proves to be a solving and conducting agent, removing the accidental quality, and restoring the substance to a general or colourless state.

  598

  The extraction of colour is also effected by re-agents. Spirits of wine has a peculiar tendency to attract the juice which tinges plants, and becomes coloured with it often in a very permanent manner. Sulphuric acid is very efficient in removing colour, especially from wool and silk, and every one is acquainted with the use of sulphur vapours in bleaching.

  599

  The strongest acids have been recommended more recently as more expeditious agents in bleaching.

  600

  The alkaline re-agents produce the same effects by contrary means — lixiviums alone, oils and fat combined with lixiviums to soap, and so forth.

  601. Before we dismiss this subject, we observe that it may be well worth while to make certain delicate experiments as to how far light and air exhibit their action in the removal of colour. It might be possible to expose coloured substances to the light under glass bells, without air, or filled with common or particular kinds of air. The colours might be those of known fugacity, and it might be observed whether any of the volatilized colour attached itself to the glass or was otherwise perceptible as a deposit or precipitate; whether, again, in such a case, this appearance would be perfectly like that which had gradually ceased to be visible, or whether it had suffered any change. Skilful experimentalists might devise various contrivances with a view to such researches.

  602

  Having thus first considered the operations of nature as subservient to our purposes, we add a few observations on the modes in which they act against us.

  603

  The art of painting is so circumstanced that the most beautiful results of mind and labour are altered and destroyed in various ways by time. Hence great pains have been always taken to find durable pigments, and so to unite them with each other and with their ground, that their permanency might be further insured. The technical history of the schools of painting affords sufficient information on this point.

  604

  We may here, too, mention a minor art, to which, in relation to dyeing, we are much indebted, namely, the weaving of tapestry. As the manufacturers were enabled to imitate the most delicate shades of pictures, and hence often brought the most variously coloured materials together, it was soon observed that the colours were not all equally durable, but that some faded from the tapestry more quickly than others. Hence the most diligent efforts were made to ensure an equal permanency to all the colours and their gradations. This object was especially promoted in France, under Colbert, whose regulations to this effect co
nstitute an epoch in the history of dyeing. The gay Aye which only aimed at a transient beauty, was practised by a particular guild. On the other hand, great pains were taken to define the technical processes which promised durability.

  And thus, after considering the artificial ex-traction, the evanescence, and the perishable nature of brilliant appearances of colour, we are again returned to the desideratum of permanency.

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  XLIX. Nomenclature.

  605

  AFTER what has been adduced respecting the origin, the increase, and the affinity of colours, we may be better enabled to judge what nomenclature would be desirable in future, and what might be retained of that hitherto in use.

  606

  The nomenclature of colours, like all other modes of designation, but especially those employed to distinguish the objects of sense, proceeded in the first instance from particular to general, and from general back again to particular terms. The name of the species became a generic name to which the individual’ was again referred.

  607

  This method might have been followed in consequence of the mutability and uncertainty of ancient modes of expression, especially since, in the early ages, more reliance may be sup-posed to have been placed on the vivid impressions of sense. The qualities of objects were described indistinctly, because they were impressed clearly on every imagination.

  608

  The pure chromatic circle was limited, it is true; but, specific as it was, it appears to have been applied to innumerable objects, while it was circumscribed by qualifying characteristics. If we take a glance at the copiousness of the Greek and Roman terms, we shall perceive how mutable the words were, and how easily each was adapted to almost every point in the colorific circle. — Note W.

  609

  In modern ages terms for many new gradations were introduced in consequence of the various operations of dyeing. Even the colours of fashion and their designations, represented an endless series of specific hues. We shall, on occasion, employ the chromatic terminology of modern languages, whence it will appear that the Tam has gradually been to introduce more exact definitions, and to individualise and arrest a fixed and specific state by language equally distinct.

  610

  With regard to the German terminology, it has the advantage of possessing four mono-syllabic names no longer to be traced to their origin, viz., yellow (Gelb), blue, red, green. They represent the most general idea of colour to the imagination, without reference to any very specific modification.

  611

  If we were to add two other qualifying terms to each of these four, as thus — red-yellow, and yellow-red, red-blue and blue-red, yellow-green and green-yellow, blue-green and green-blue, we should express the gradations of the chromatic circle with sufficient distinctness; and if we were to add the designations of light and dark, and again define, in some measure, the degree of purity or its opposite by the mono-syllables black, white, grey, brown, we should have a tolerably sufficient range of expressions to describe the ordinary appearances presented to us, without troubling ourselves whether they were produced dynamically or atomically.

  612

  The specific and proper terms in use might, however, still be conveniently employed, and we have thus made use of the words orange and violet. We have in like manner employed the word “purpor” to designate a pure central red, because the secretion of the murex or “purpura” is to be carried to the highest point of culmination by the action of the sun-light on fine linen saturated with the juice.

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  L. Minerals.

  613

  THE colours of minerals are all of a chemical nature, and thus the modes in which they are produced may be explained in a general way by what has been said on the subject of chemical colours.

  614

  Among the external characteristics of minerals, the description of their colours occupies the first place; and great pains have been taken, in the spirit of modern times, to define and arrest every such appearance exactly : by this means, however, new difficulties, it appears to us, have been created, which occasion no little inconvenience in practice.

  615

  It is true, this precision, when we reflect how it arose, carries with it its own excuse. The painter has at all times been privileged in the use of colours. The few specific hues, in themselves, admitted of no change; but from these, innumerable gradations were artificially produced which imitated the surface of natural objects. It was, therefore, not to be wondered at that these gradations should also be adopted as criterions, and that the artist should be invited to produce tinted patterns with which the objects of nature might be compared, and according to which they were to receive their designations.

  616

  But, after all, the terminology of colours which has been introduced in mineralogy, is open to many objections. The terms, for instance, have not been borrowed from the mineral kingdom, as was possible enough in most cases, but from all kinds of visible objects. Too many specific terms have been adopted; and in seeking to establish new definitions by combining these, the nomenclators have not reflected that they thus altogether efface the image from the imagination, and the idea from the understanding. Lastly, these individual designations of colours, employed to a certain extent as elementary definitions, are not arranged in the best manner as regards their respective derivation from each other : hence, the scholar must learn every single designation, and impress an almost lifeless but positive language on his memory. The further consideration of this would be too foreign to our present subject.

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  LI. Plants.

  617

  The colours of organic bodies in general may be considered as a higher kind of chemical operation, for which reason the ancients employed the word concoction, to designate the process. All the elementary colours, as well as the combined and secondary hues, appear on the surface of organic productions, while on the other hand, the interior, if not colourless, appears, strictly speaking, negative when brought to the light. As we propose to communicate our views respecting organic nature, to a certain extent, in another place, we only insert here what has been before connected with the doctrine of colours, while it may serve as an introduction to the further consideration of the views alluded to : and first, of plants.

  618

  Seeds, bulbs, roots, and what is generally shut out from the light, or immediately surrounded by the earth, appear, for the most part, white.

  619

  Plants reared from seed, in darkness, are white, or approaching to yellow. Light, on the other hand, in acting on their colours, acts at the same time on their form.

  620

  Plants which grow in darkness make, it is true, long shoots from joint to joint : but the stems between two joints are thus longer than they should be; no side stems are produced, and the metamorphosis of the plant does not take place.

  621

  Light, on the other hand, places it at once in an active state; the plant appears green, and the course of the metamorphosis proceeds uninterruptedly to the period of reproduction,

  622

  We know that the leaves of the stem are only preparations and pre-significations of the instruments of florification and fructification, and accordingly we can already see colours in the leaves of the stem which, as it were, announce the flower from afar, as is the case in the amaranthus.

  623

  There are white flowers whose petals have wrought or refilled themselves to the greatest purity; there are coloured ones, in which the elementary hues may be said to fluctuate to and fro. There are some which, in tending to the higher state, have only partially emancipated themselves from the green of the plant.

  624

  Flowers of the same genus, and even of the same kind, are found of all colours. Roses, and particularly mallows, for example, vary through a great portion of the colorific circle from white to yellow, then through red-
yellow to bright red, and from thence to the darkest hue it can exhibit as it approaches blue.

  625

  Others already begin from a higher degree in the scale, as, for example, the poppy, which is yellow-red in the first instance, and which afterwards approaches a violet hue.

  626

  Yet the same colours in species, varieties, and even in families and classes, if not constant, are still predominant, especially the yellow colour : blue is throughout rarer.

  627

  A process somewhat similar takes place in the juicy capsule of the fruit, for it increases in colour from the green, through the yellowish and yellow, up to the highest red, the colour of the rind thus indicating the degree of ripeness. Some are coloured all round, some only on the sunny side, in which last case the augmentation of the yellow into red, — the gradations crowding in and upon each other, — may be very well observed.

  628

  Many fruits, too, are coloured internally; pure red juices, especially, are common.

  629

  The colour which is found superficially in the flower and penetratingly in the fruit, spreads itself through all the remaining parts, colouring the roots and the juices of the stem, and this with a very rich and powerful hue.

  630

  So, again, the colour of the wood passes from yellow through the different degrees of red up to pure red and on to brown. Blue woods are unknown to me; and thus in this degree of organisation the active side exhibits itself powerfully, although both principles appear balanced in the general green of the plant.

  631

  We have seen above that the germ pushing from the earth is generally white and yellowish, but that by means of the action of light and air it acquires a green colour. The same happens with young leaves of trees, as may be seen, for example, in the birch, the young leaves of which are yellowish, and if boiled, yield a beautiful yellow juice : afterwards they become greener, while the leaves of other trees become gradually blue-green.