Benutzerspezifische Werkzeuge

My dissertation sets out to explain the landscape project of Philipp Otto Runge through his theory of color. In particular, I demonstrate that color animates and makes coherent Runge’s project as a speculative image of ‘Life.’
In this workshop presentation, I will discuss content from one of my dissertation chapters, which focuses on what I term Runge’s ‘geometrical method.’ Drawing largely from Runge’s only non-posthumously published treatise on color, I show how Runge mobilizes ‘geometrical method’ to demonstrate the forming activity of color. Contra contemporary associations of geometrical method with mechanism, Runge, I argue, assimilates Euclidean geometry to teleology in an effort to express color’s living unity. Ultimately, geometrical method serves to enact a logic of manifestation, whereby color realizes its wholeness via a dialectic of limitation and expansion.

[Image citation: Philipp Otto Runge, Farben-Kugel. (Hamburg: Perthes, 1810), 13]