In the following excerpt, Stewart examines the idea that "Woolf s search for spiritual essences is expressed in light and color " in To the Lighthouse.

According to Virginia Woolf, "painting and writing ... have much in common. The novelist after all wants to make us see.... It is a very complex business, the mixing and marrying of words that goes on, probably unconsciously, in the poet's mind to feed the reader's eye. All great writers are great colorists.." While "sound and sight seem to make equal parts of [her] first impressions," Woolf stresses their painterly quality.

In To the Lighthouse, Woolf s search for spiritual essences is expressed in light and color. Johannes Itten's metaphysic of light and color illuminates the relation between creative source (Mrs. Ramsay/the Lighthouse) and creative artist (Lily Briscoe/the painting) in Woolf s novel. Itten further affirms that "the end and aim...