I-83 Steiner, expanding on Goethe, on color

Colour, Lects. 1 and 2; The Arts and their Mission, Lects. 7 and 8

In the realm of color, we again find Steiner and the “scientific” view to be at odds as to its nature or objectivity. The Newtonian approach to color is based on the spectrum and the measurement of wave lengths. Steiner basically adopted and carried further Goethe’s approach to color. There are two types of colors, “image” and “lustre,” exemplified by the following:

Image colors, as their name implies, are an image of something, namely, Green—plant; Peach-blossom—human soul; White—light and Black—lifeless. These are derived as follows:

Green—comes from the plant, which owes its existence to the fact that it has, in addition to its physical body, an etheric (life) body. The etheric body is not green; the green is to be found in its physical body. Although green belongs to the plant in a most intimate way, it is not the essential nature of the plant, for that lies in the etheric body. It is the mineral nature that appears as green. Therefore, green represents the lifeless image of the living.

Peach-blossom—one’s human nature is revealed by the way the soul flows into one’s physical form in the color of one’s skin. Thus, peach-blossom represents the living image of the soul.

White—inasmuch as light gives us something of our own spirit, our “I Am,” we can say that white or light represents the soul’s image of the spirit.

Black—carbon represents black (though it also represents a diamond under certain circumstances). A carbonized plant is dead. Black shows itself alien to life. The soul deserts us when blackness is within us, the spirit can flourish. It can penetrate the blackness and assert itself within it. However spirit is the only thing that can be brought into it. Thus, black represents the spiritual image of the lifeless.

Steiner gives us the following drawing, in which the outer circle represents the “Illuminant,” the middle circle the “Shadow-thrower,” and the inner circle the “Image:” ^{(click here for drawing)}