Basically, I was going for the Colour and Line Exhibition: Turner's Experiments Exhibition in Tate Britain the other day. I was on my own, 11 in the morning. One man, in an exhibition about the techniques of etching, water colour and tones. I did not expect t come across something this funny.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, philosopher and scientist, who wrote Farbenlehre (The Theory of Colours). He was active rouhgly after Sir Isaac Newton's death and before Turner's birth.
He was talking abou "After Images" an experience simliar to that of us taking pictures of ourselves with camera flashes, leaving black/blue patches of "after images" when we look at things.
Goethe, being a German, made a very German observation.
'I had entered an inn towards evening, and, as a well-flavoured girl, with a brilliantly fair complexion, black hair, and a scarlet bodice came into the room, I looked attentively at her as she stoof before me at some distance in half shadow. As she presently turned away, I saw on the white wall, which was now before me, a black face surrounded with a bright light, while the dress of the perfectly distinct figure, appeared of a beautiful sea-green.'
-------- J.W. von Goethe, Theory of Colours, 1810.
And you wonder why scientists rarely pick up hot girls...
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