DOI Heft:
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DOI Heft:Obsah / Contents
DOI Artikel:Piñero Moral, Ricardo Isidoro; Dohna Schlobitten, Yvonne: Iconosophy: the relationship between colour theory and iconography (Goethe and Turner. The labyrinth of word and light)
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31179#0231
Perception is the meeting of the eye and the object.
However, from an aesthetic point of view this is an
encounter that can iead to admiration.
Light seduces the eye and the eye attracts colour.
Nobody will réfuté this direct relationship between
the eye and light; it is harder to concerne of one and
the other as one and the same thing. However, this
conception is easier if we say that there is a patent
light within the eye, which is excited by the tiniest
interior or exterior stimulus. Under the spell of our
imagination we can produce the clearest images even
in the darkness. In our dreams we see objects in broad
daylight; further, when the sight organ undergoes
mechanical stimulation, we see light and coloursA
Thus arises the act of looking: a gaze encom-
passed within a magic, immaterial contact; a sensa-
tion that hlters from inside us, producing a given
effect. Colour sight offers 'Wz o/ yW/%v /L#
/Wčwřt h 1 lence,
looking becomes the condition of the visibility of
colour and shows us that plastic rhetoric, rather than
being a more or less plausible theory, is a fact: the
fact that we are aware of a luminous attraction, a
lucid persuasion.
II. Rhetoric of Colour in Turner
After a general introduction into the meanmg of
"rhetoric of colour"', we try to analyse the "rheto-
ric of colour" in Turner's Lyyfp CoAwr
TAvry) — TW AHrAyy y/Ar /A DíAgř — ATor^r ÎF'hA'yg /A
TLčA gf [Fig. 1]. Together with its companion
piece - TA yf Af D<?Ag<?
[Fig. 3], dated 1842 — 1843, they were hrst exhibited
in 1843 but failed to attract much interest. The crit-
ics felt that Turner wanted to reinforce his image as
an eccentric person. In these paintings, he gives us
two brain twisters, and nobody beside himself could
solve those riddlesA
But indeed Turner with these paintings stands in
the long tradition of classical iconographie repre-
21 GOETHE 1992 (see m note 20), p. 64.
22 PLATO: AHM, 76c.
2^ 13.5.1843, quoted after FINBERG, A. J.: TA ly/ô A
A Ai. HL R H. Oxford 1961, p. 396; see also BUTLIN,
M. — JOLL, E.: TA PA/Axgr Ad- 4Í. HL TTrzzor. 2 vols. New
L. y. Ai. HL TAzzor.' AAAow — TA LroA/zg of Ař
Dř/zzgq / f 42 — / <$43. To/Ao^, Tkto GTAry.
sentations of the deluge although at the same time
going beyond it.
When we look at the painting, we are staring at
the midst of a round light of yellow, encircled by a
dark blue ring, we see Moses and the serpent as a
symbol of the salvation of humanity [Fig. 1]. Beneath
them there seems to be a group of faces. We sense
them but we cannot really describe these figures.
They are merely hints that vanish in the waves of
colours. Turner abandons the language of figura-
tive art; his figures do not depict a body, a form,
they seem instead to be simply créatures of moving
colours. We feel we are entermg into a dark tunnel
which opens up at the end to a shinmg light. We are
thrown into this tunnel like an eddy. Turner is show-
ing the terrifying character of the deluge as a wild
act of air without the typical iconographie symbol
of the deluge, the Ark. Salvation is represented by
Haven 1977, p. 230; TA%<?r; fT^w, AforMzz... (see in note 5),
p. 327. Another critique can be found in the satirical journal
PzwA (a critique about the painting "Ship of the Whaler" in
the exhibition from 1845): "... F ^ t<%f P HLGAr; 1 7w<rq
AiorA/zg, TTř%Ag, orNgA Pzroz/A A AtA^A/^orňžTZíť
zro c<%/? raA ozzo or /A otAr A A"
227
However, from an aesthetic point of view this is an
encounter that can iead to admiration.
Light seduces the eye and the eye attracts colour.
Nobody will réfuté this direct relationship between
the eye and light; it is harder to concerne of one and
the other as one and the same thing. However, this
conception is easier if we say that there is a patent
light within the eye, which is excited by the tiniest
interior or exterior stimulus. Under the spell of our
imagination we can produce the clearest images even
in the darkness. In our dreams we see objects in broad
daylight; further, when the sight organ undergoes
mechanical stimulation, we see light and coloursA
Thus arises the act of looking: a gaze encom-
passed within a magic, immaterial contact; a sensa-
tion that hlters from inside us, producing a given
effect. Colour sight offers 'Wz o/ yW/%v /L#
/Wčwřt h 1 lence,
looking becomes the condition of the visibility of
colour and shows us that plastic rhetoric, rather than
being a more or less plausible theory, is a fact: the
fact that we are aware of a luminous attraction, a
lucid persuasion.
II. Rhetoric of Colour in Turner
After a general introduction into the meanmg of
"rhetoric of colour"', we try to analyse the "rheto-
ric of colour" in Turner's Lyyfp CoAwr
TAvry) — TW AHrAyy y/Ar /A DíAgř — ATor^r ÎF'hA'yg /A
TLčA gf [Fig. 1]. Together with its companion
piece - TA yf Af D<?Ag<?
[Fig. 3], dated 1842 — 1843, they were hrst exhibited
in 1843 but failed to attract much interest. The crit-
ics felt that Turner wanted to reinforce his image as
an eccentric person. In these paintings, he gives us
two brain twisters, and nobody beside himself could
solve those riddlesA
But indeed Turner with these paintings stands in
the long tradition of classical iconographie repre-
21 GOETHE 1992 (see m note 20), p. 64.
22 PLATO: AHM, 76c.
2^ 13.5.1843, quoted after FINBERG, A. J.: TA ly/ô A
A Ai. HL R H. Oxford 1961, p. 396; see also BUTLIN,
M. — JOLL, E.: TA PA/Axgr Ad- 4Í. HL TTrzzor. 2 vols. New
L. y. Ai. HL TAzzor.' AAAow — TA LroA/zg of Ař
Dř/zzgq / f 42 — / <$43. To/Ao^, Tkto GTAry.
sentations of the deluge although at the same time
going beyond it.
When we look at the painting, we are staring at
the midst of a round light of yellow, encircled by a
dark blue ring, we see Moses and the serpent as a
symbol of the salvation of humanity [Fig. 1]. Beneath
them there seems to be a group of faces. We sense
them but we cannot really describe these figures.
They are merely hints that vanish in the waves of
colours. Turner abandons the language of figura-
tive art; his figures do not depict a body, a form,
they seem instead to be simply créatures of moving
colours. We feel we are entermg into a dark tunnel
which opens up at the end to a shinmg light. We are
thrown into this tunnel like an eddy. Turner is show-
ing the terrifying character of the deluge as a wild
act of air without the typical iconographie symbol
of the deluge, the Ark. Salvation is represented by
Haven 1977, p. 230; TA%<?r; fT^w, AforMzz... (see in note 5),
p. 327. Another critique can be found in the satirical journal
PzwA (a critique about the painting "Ship of the Whaler" in
the exhibition from 1845): "... F ^ t<%f P HLGAr; 1 7w<rq
AiorA/zg, TTř%Ag, orNgA Pzroz/A A AtA^A/^orňžTZíť
zro c<%/? raA ozzo or /A otAr A A"
227