Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (44.2011)

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approach and attempts to examine the rhetorical
dimension of colour.
How do we petceive the theory of coiout which
ttanscends the iconographie message?
While other colour théories (Alberti, Leonardo,
Bellori etc.) were ušed by the artists to develop the
perception of the feel of the objects in the painting,
Goethe's theory of colour goes beyond the mere
dehnition of the emotional effect of objects, we háve
a change of the very philosophy of the painting. The
essential role of the observer for understanding the
painting is theoretically dehned in Goethe's theory
of colour.
Goethe talks about the sensual-ethical effect of
colour, its sensual and meta-sensual actuality. This
means that colour becomes pictorial. Colour appears,
in the moment of viewing it, in its own reality. Colour
does not appear as a "characteristic of " something

else; it appears as itself. But even more, colours exist,
because the observer is involved in the process of
arriving at a consciousness of the picture.
Goethe's theory is the key to the understanding
of the radical change from the consciousness of the
observer which understands the inner movement of
the represented hgures in the painting through the
language of colour, and the capacity of the observer
to feel the deeper universal sense of the iconography
of the painting in his own soul through the language
of colour in form of a self-purihcation. This means
the "rhetoric of colour" hnds not only a reality in the
pamted hgures but also in the soul of the observer.
In Rothko, there are no hgures in the painting, and
the expression of colour hnds its incarnation not in
the soul of painted hgures, but in the observer, who
becomes the figure of the painting [Fig. 2],
This article aims to create a general explanation
of the "emotional-rhetoric" dimension of colour in
showing the relation between iconography and the
theory of colour with a specihc example, Turner's
ÍAA/ (A A/r (GA/A 1* TAorg) — TA ATvAyy /A
TFAy<? — ALwr IFA/Ay /A It is interest-
ing to note that Turner ušed this specihc style also
for other religious thèmes. For example in connec-
tion with the DriMw gf (London, Tate Gallery),
Turner said that the painting was unhnished, and he
used the back for sketches. The blurred confusion
of the painting reveals a dreamlike nature. In other
works, like TA TA/1 /A Hon*)? (London Tate Gal-
lery), Turner expressed in an unusual way the topic
of the 'Apocalypse". Death appears like a dreamlike
image, and the only thing which remains are the long
grabbing arms; all the rest vanishes in our mind. This
painting in a way is more prophétie than real. We can
see the same effect in the painting AyyTT/rwA'yy A /A
W/7 (London, Tate Gallery). In this painting, Turner
combines the beginning and the end of the Bible:
the Genesis and the Revelation. All these examples
show that he does not only invent new iconographie
motives, but with his aesthetics he pénétrâtes into
new dimensions of the iconographie thèmes. We
call it the iconosophy of colour. We choose the term
because iconography becomes philosophical when
aesthetic théories transform the level of perception

Cf. KÜPPERS, H.: LwA/w^/py A Z? A A rAiw. Bar- ' Cf KAYSER, W: AL%y/ yüü TZyf GoAw-WAA. Göt-
celona 1977. tingen 1961.

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