About the Book
Never before published essays by the widely admired psychologist of art. Arnheim spiritedly asserts art's fundamental achievements.
Rudolf Arnheim has spent a lifetime analyzing the basic psychological principles that make works of visual art meaningful stirring indispensable and lasting. But recent fashionable attitudes and theories about art he argues are undermining the foundation of artistic achievement itself.
The essays collected in this volume are written in his familiar careful and solidly supported manner but under present circumstances they amount to a call to arms. Included is a series of miniature monographs on a variety of great works of art. In other essays Arnheim uncovers enlightening perspectives in the art of the blind in architectural space in caricature and in the work of psychotics and autistic children. He also presents new scientific aspects on the psychology of art and widens our range of vision by connecting art with language literature and religion.
Rudolf Arnheim has spent a lifetime analyzing the basic psychological principles that make works of visual art meaningful stirring indispensable and lasting. But recent fashionable attitudes and theories about art he argues are undermining the foundation of artistic achievement itself.
The essays collected in this volume are written in his familiar careful and solidly supported manner but under present circumstances they amount to a call to arms. Included is a series of miniature monographs on a variety of great works of art. In other essays Arnheim uncovers enlightening perspectives in the art of the blind in architectural space in caricature and in the work of psychotics and autistic children. He also presents new scientific aspects on the psychology of art and widens our range of vision by connecting art with language literature and religion.