High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Theory of Colours (original German title, Zur Farbenlehre) is a book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published in 1810. The work comprises three sections: i) a didactic section in which Goethe presents his own observations, ii) a polemic section in which he makes his case against Newton, and iii) a historical section. It contains some of the earliest and most accurate descriptions of phenomena such as coloured shadows, refraction, and chromatic aberration.