16. Goethe as Thinker and Investigator

As Goethe began his consideration of the being of colors, it was essentially an interest in art that brought him to it. His intuitive spirit soon recognized that the use of colour in painting is subject to a deep lawfulness. Wherein this lawfulness consisted he could not discover as long as he only moved about theoretically in the realm of painting, nor could trained painters give him any satisfactory information about this. These painters knew very well, in a practical sense, how to mix and apply the colors, but could not express themselves in concepts about the matter. When Goethe, then, was confronted in Italy not only by the most sublime works of art of this kind, but also by the most magnificent colors of nature, the urge awoke in him with special force to know the natural laws of the being of colour.