Although Goethe did not propose any scientific reasoning behind his observations, in the late 1860s Bruecke and Donders first suggested that the chromostereoptic effect was due to accommodative awareness, given that ocular optics are not achromatic and red objects require more accommodation to be focused on the retina.
Worked in physiological optics with, among others, Snellen and Donders.
These two lines of work came together in the research of Dutch physiologist F. C. Donders and his student J. J. de Jaager, who recognized the potential of reaction times for more or less objectively quantifying the amount of time elementary mental operations required.
Ruete, Listing, Donders, Helmholtz, von Graefe, Volkmann and many others have provided the broad outline of an answer to the question how the eye rotates during eye movements.