ABSTRACT

The predominantly allocentric mode of perception of adult man’s sense of sight does not exclude the survival and development of its autocentric functioning which prevailed in the newborn and the infant. This is particularly apparent in the perception of color and light. In contrast to the actively structuring and objectifying allocentric perceptual attitude characteristic of the perception of form and structure, the perception of color and light does not require such an attitude. Nor does color perception, by itself, permit objectification, while perception of form does. The visual recognition of a particular object is not possible without form perception. The perception of color, if it is not accompanied by and integrated with form perception, typically occurs with a passive, more autocentric perceptual attitude. Color and light “impinge on the eye which does not have to seek them out attentively but reacts to their impact.” 2 Goethe speaks of the “sensual-moral” effect of color and describes how one is “affected pathologically” by it. He does not mean pathological in today’s meaning of the word but refers to the pathic, passive, reactive quality of the color experience. 3