ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the fallacies surrounding vision and how these fallacies played out in the early modern world. These concerns are complicated by classical notions of vision and colour and are compounded by a reliance on humoral theory. Understanding the early modern conception of sight leads to an appreciation of how colour cues affect the passions. The role of the imagination is shown to be integral to the relationship between sight, colour, and emotions. Emotional scripts are harnessed to project expected emotions and in some cases this is achieved through the use of chromatic emotives. Coupled with the importance of applying reason to the passions, the chapter demonstrates the tension between chromatic influences and the need to moderate one’s individual responses. Colour, the humoral body, vision, and imagination were inextricably entwined in the early modern period producing an emotional register that was paradoxically coherent and contradictory.
