Goethe and Land Provoke Colorful Comments

Abstract

Neil Ribe and Friedrich Steinle seem to believe that Edwin Land and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe made unprecedented contributions. In fact, both simply presented to innocent audiences already recognized visual phenomena 1 1. See, for example, my book, G. S. Wasserman, Color Vision: An Historical Introduction, Wiley, New York (1978). in very accessible and highly dramatic forms. In Goethe’s day, the scientific bases of these phenomena were still not completely understood, and Goethe’s artistic characterization of them may have modestly inhibited fuller understanding. But by the time that Land and his stagehands went about giving extraordinarily elaborate public demonstrations of basic color phenomena, a first approximation account had been given for both the perceptual and neural bases of color perception. Unfortunately, few members of Land’s audiences apparently had previously visited any well-equipped color vision laboratory.Ribe and Steinle’s presentation is also problematic outside the domain of color when they ascribe to Land a special appreciation of the importance of boundaries in the eye’s estimation of lightness. If one leaves aside the contributions of nonphysicists, Ernst Mach’s name is as indelibly associated with his 19th-century work on edge contrast effects (now known as Mach bands) in vision 2 2. E. Mach, Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations, reprint ed., C. M. Williams, trans., Open Court, Chicago (2000). as it is with the speed of sound. REFERENCESSection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCES <<CITING ARTICLES1. See, for example, my book, G. S. Wasserman, Color Vision: An Historical Introduction, Wiley, New York (1978). Google Scholar2. E. Mach, Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations, reprint ed., C. M. Williams, trans., Open Court, Chicago (2000). Google Scholar© 2003 American Institute of Physics.

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