Toward a Psychology of Art
Collected Essays
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"A worthy companion to the writer's Art and Visual Perception, and the two books together form one of the outstanding contributions of this century to the psychology of art."—Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
"Uncommonly persuasive, eloquent, and useful...All through a long book subtleties of appreciation occur, with a wide, disinterestedly interested sympathy for different schools, epochs, and kinds of art, which is the mark of a critic understanding today's 'cultural unity of time and space'."—The Times Educational Supplement
"Arnheim's erudition if prodigious, and he moves with enviable ease among the three fields of psychology, art, and philosophy."—Journal of Individual Psychology
"If anyone can write a to-flight mid-20th Century treatise on the psychology of art, Arnheim is the man to do it...read the book for edification and education in an exciting field of inquiry."—Contemporary Psychology
"One gets a richer appreciation of art and a further desire to examine the relationships between that which is studied and used in psychology and the world of art."—Journal of Projective Techniques
"Uncommonly persuasive, eloquent, and useful...All through a long book subtleties of appreciation occur, with a wide, disinterestedly interested sympathy for different schools, epochs, and kinds of art, which is the mark of a critic understanding today's 'cultural unity of time and space'."—The Times Educational Supplement
"Arnheim's erudition if prodigious, and he moves with enviable ease among the three fields of psychology, art, and philosophy."—Journal of Individual Psychology
"If anyone can write a to-flight mid-20th Century treatise on the psychology of art, Arnheim is the man to do it...read the book for edification and education in an exciting field of inquiry."—Contemporary Psychology
"One gets a richer appreciation of art and a further desire to examine the relationships between that which is studied and used in psychology and the world of art."—Journal of Projective Techniques
Psychology as a humanistic science is beginning to emerge from an uneasy rapproachement between the philosophical and poetical interpretations of the mind on one hand and the experimental investigations of muscle, nerve and gland on the other. And barely are we getting used to what such a science might be like, when we are faced with attempts to deal scientifically with the most delicate, the most intangible, and the most human among the human manifestations. We attempt a psychology of art.
Introduction
I. KEYNOTES
Form and the Consumer
Agenda for the Psychology of Art
II. THE SENSE OF SIGHT
Perceptual Abstraction and Art
The Gestalt Theory of Expression
Perceptual and Aesthetic Aspects of the Movement Response
Perceptual Analysis of a Rorschach Card
A Review of Proportion
III. THE VISIBLE WORLD
Order and Complexity in Landscape Design
The Myth of the Bleating Lamb
Art History and the Partial God
Accident and the Necessity of Art
Melancholy Unshaped
From Function to Expression
IV. SYMBOLS
Artistic Symbols—Freudian and Otherwise
Perceptual Analysis of a Symbol of Interaction
Four Analyses:
The Holes of Henry Moore
A Note on Monsters
Picasso's "Nightfishing at Antibes"
Concerning the Dance
Abstract Language and the Metaphor
V. GENERALITIES
On Inspiration
Contemplation and Creativity
Emotion and Feeling in Psychology and Art
The Robin and the Saint
VI. TO TEACHERS AND ARTISTS
What Kind of Psychology?
Is Modern Art Necessary?
The Form We Seek
Index
I. KEYNOTES
Form and the Consumer
Agenda for the Psychology of Art
II. THE SENSE OF SIGHT
Perceptual Abstraction and Art
The Gestalt Theory of Expression
Perceptual and Aesthetic Aspects of the Movement Response
Perceptual Analysis of a Rorschach Card
A Review of Proportion
III. THE VISIBLE WORLD
Order and Complexity in Landscape Design
The Myth of the Bleating Lamb
Art History and the Partial God
Accident and the Necessity of Art
Melancholy Unshaped
From Function to Expression
IV. SYMBOLS
Artistic Symbols—Freudian and Otherwise
Perceptual Analysis of a Symbol of Interaction
Four Analyses:
The Holes of Henry Moore
A Note on Monsters
Picasso's "Nightfishing at Antibes"
Concerning the Dance
Abstract Language and the Metaphor
V. GENERALITIES
On Inspiration
Contemplation and Creativity
Emotion and Feeling in Psychology and Art
The Robin and the Saint
VI. TO TEACHERS AND ARTISTS
What Kind of Psychology?
Is Modern Art Necessary?
The Form We Seek
Index
The Split and the Structure, by Rudolph Arnheim
To the Rescue of Art, by Rudolph Arnheim
Parables of Sun Light, by Rudolph Arnheim
The Power of the Center, by Rudolph Arnheim
New Essays on the Psychology of Art, by Rudolph Arnheim
The Genesis of a Painting, by Rudolph Arnheim
The Dynamics of Architectural Form, by Rudolph Arnheim
Art and Visual Perception, by Rudolph Arnheim
Entropy and Art, by Rudolph Arnheim
Visual Thinking, by Rudolph Arnheim
Film as Art, by Rudolph Arnheim
To the Rescue of Art, by Rudolph Arnheim
Parables of Sun Light, by Rudolph Arnheim
The Power of the Center, by Rudolph Arnheim
New Essays on the Psychology of Art, by Rudolph Arnheim
The Genesis of a Painting, by Rudolph Arnheim
The Dynamics of Architectural Form, by Rudolph Arnheim
Art and Visual Perception, by Rudolph Arnheim
Entropy and Art, by Rudolph Arnheim
Visual Thinking, by Rudolph Arnheim
Film as Art, by Rudolph Arnheim