What Is Colour?

"Michael H. Wilson (1901-1985) published a monograph in 1949 called What is Colour? A Goethean Approach to a Fundamental Problem. It was conceived as a handbook for the Goethe Exhibition held that year in Olympia, London, and soon enjoyed an independent existence as a highly regarded introduction to colour. Although suggestive, it would be misleading to think that Wilson's first work on colour provides a definitive answer to the question its title poses. This question stayed with Wilson for the rest of his life. He pursued it from multiple perspectives, beginning with the physiological aspect of colour and progressing the physical, philosophical, artistic, therapeutic and lastly spiritual aspects. The results of his investigations, which he published in leading scientific and Anthroposophical journals, are presented here together with his monograph for the first time in one volume. Since the chronology of his works happens to mirror loosely the structure of Goethe's Theory of Colours, "a Goethean approach to a fundamental problem" is a fitting description of his work on colour as a whole."--Page 4 of cover.