Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) – The Morning after the Deluge – Moses Writing the Book of Genesis
J. M. W. Turner·1843
Historical Context
Turner exhibited Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) at the Royal Academy in 1843 as a pendant to Shade and Darkness. The painting responds to Goethe's color theory, which Turner had studied in Charles Eastlake's 1840 English translation. The composition is dominated by a vortex of warm yellow and gold tones — the "positive" colors Goethe associated with warmth and proximity — within which the figure of Moses appears writing the Book of Genesis after the Biblical deluge. The painting represents Turner's most explicit engagement with scientific color theory, translated into a visionary image that transcends both science and narrative. Now in the National Gallery, it demonstrates Turner's intellectual ambition alongside his painterly genius.
Technical Analysis
The nearly abstract vortex of golden light represents one of Turner's most radical experiments in chromatic painting. The circular composition dissolves recognizable forms into pure color and light, with only faint suggestions of the biblical narrative visible within the luminous sphere.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the near-total dissolution of representational content: Turner pushes further than any previous European painting toward pure abstraction, the biblical narrative barely readable within the golden vortex.
- ◆Look at the circular form that structures the composition: the painting's content and form mirror each other — the circular vortex of color enacts the rotation of the light cycle that Goethe's theory described.
- ◆Observe the warm, 'positive' colors Goethe associated with energy and proximity: Turner fills the composition with the yellow-gold tones that Goethe's theory identified as the colors of warmth, light, and creative force.
- ◆Find Moses writing the Book of Genesis: barely visible within the luminous sphere, the tiny human figure making the first words is almost absorbed into the divine light he is attempting to describe.
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