the contrast between light and dark

'As Goethe put it in his Theory of Colors, the visible is not defined as presence of light and absence of darkness, but as an ever shifting encounter of light and shadow. Eliane Escoubas explicates Goethe's theory in the following way: 'Without the contrast between light and dark, only dazzlement ['blouissement] is left'which is also blindness.''

' Andrea Goulet, Optiques, 2006, citing Eliane Escoubas, 'L'Oeil (du) teinturier,' Critique 37, 418 (March 1982).