Johan Wolfgang von Goethe is known as a celebrated German poet, however, his scientific accomplishments have remained rather unknown. Yet, Goethe had a keen interest in all the science of his time and he has written a number of books and writings on mineralogy, geology, botany, morphology, osteology, zoology, meteorology, chemistry, physics and chromatics.

This work concentrates on Goethe's studies of prismatic color phenomena and the formation of rainbows from a phenomenological point of view, they are also compared to the Newtonian physics of the time. 48 color photographs are included which illustrate the studied phenomena. Goethe's phenomenological way of doing science can be said to be complementary to way of mathematical physics.