Under the title Introduction to Color Theory, Károly Szelényi, Hungarian Heritage Award-winning photographer and member of the Széchenyi Academy of Arts, will give a lecture accompanied by projected images. In 2012, Szelényi published his research on color theory under the title COLORS – The Deeds and Sufferings of Light, Goethe’s Color Theory in Everyday Life. He began this work about fifteen years earlier, purposefully collecting visual material to illustrate theories of color. Through a thorough study of the literature, it became clear to him that Goethe had left his mark on almost every area of color theory.

By repeating the poet’s prism experiments, the author demonstrates that the six primary colors of the still-valid color wheel were defined by Goethe. “Elementary color theory has to deal exclusively with three or six colors, which can be comfortably included in a circle. All else, the infinitely varied modifications, belong rather to application—to the technique of painting, to coloring, indeed: to life itself” – he writes in the introduction to his Theory of Colors, published in 1810.

*Goethe

The artist’s website: www.magyarkepek.hu

The event is part of the national series of events organised under the title White Night of Galleries.