Goethe's Theory of ColoursGoethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Philosophy
Goethe's Theory of Colours
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Color
According to the usual acceptation of the term chiaro-scuro in the
artist world, it means not only the mutable effects produced by light
and shade, but also the permanent differences in brightness and
darkness which are owing to the varieties of local colour.
NOTE E E.--Par. 855.
The mannered treatment of light and shade here alluded to by the
author is very seldom to be met with in the works of the colourists;
the taste may have first arisen from the use of plaster-casts, and
was most prevalent in France and Italy in the early part of the last
century. Piazzetta represented it in Venice, Subleyras in Rome. In
France "Restout taught his pupils that a globe ought to be represented
as a polyhedron. Greuze most implicitly adopted the doctrine, and in
practice showed that he considered the round cheeks of a young girl or
an infant as bodies cut into facettes."[1]
[1] See Taylor's translation of Merimée on oil-painting, p. 27.
Barry, in a letter from Paris, speaks of Restout as the only painter
who resembled the earlier French masters: the manner in question is
undoubtedly sometimes very observable in Poussin. The English artist
elsewhere speaks of the "broad, happy manner of Subleyras."--_Works_,
London, 1809.
NOTE F F.--Par. 859.
All this was no doubt suggested by Heinrich Meyer, whose chief
occupation in Rome, at one time, was making sepia drawings from
sculpture (see Goethe's Italiänische Reise). It is hardly necessary to
say that the observation respecting the treatment of the surface in the
antique statues is very fanciful.
NOTE G G.--Par. 863.
This observation might have been suggested by the drawings of Claude,
which, with the slightest means, exhibit an harmonious balance of warm
and cold.
NOTE H H.--Par. 865.
The colouring of Paolo Uccello, according to Vasari's account of him,
was occasionally so remarkable that he might perhaps have been fairly
included among the instances of defective vision given by the author.
His skill in perspective, indicating an eye for gradation, may be also
reckoned among the points of resemblance (see Par. 105).
NOTE I I.--Par. 902.
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