Goethe approaches colors as a multifaceted phenomenon: on one hand, they are subjective but only fleeting appearances within our own eyes; on the other hand, they become objective but only transient visual phenomena, and finally, they acquire a stable existence as dyes. At the same time, they have aesthetic and moral significance.

And all these aspects of the issue are tackled as expressions of a universal perspective and idea, the idea that colors combine to give us a wholeness and harmony. Therefore, anyone who feels suffocated within the shapes and abstract ideas of modern Physics and Optics will breathe a different air within the framework of Goethe's color theory and will feel the caress of a more spiritual and ideal world.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]