To the Rescue of Art

by Arnheim, Rudolf

• ISBN13: 9780520074590
• ISBN10: 0520074599
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction
In Favor of Confrontation	p. 3
Art Among the Objects	p. 7
What Became of Abstraction?	p. 15
The Reach of Reality in the Arts	p. 27
Space as an Image of Time	p. 35
The Reading of Images and the Images of Reading	p. 45
Writers' Pointers	p. 53
For Your Eyes Only: Seven Exercises in Art Appreciation	p. 61
Picasso at Guernica	p. 74
Sculpture: The Nature of a Medium	p. 82
Negative Space in Architecture	p. 92
Caricature: The Rationale of Deformation	p. 101
Art History and Psychology	p. 115
The Melody of Motion	p. 127
Perceptual Aspects of Art for the Blind	p. 133
The Artistry of Psychotics	p. 144
The Puzzle of Nadia's Drawings	p. 155
The Artist as Healer	p. 164
But Is It Science?	p. 175
Complementarity from the Outside	p. 185
Interaction: Its Benefits and Costs	p. 193
What Is Gestalt Psychology?	p. 200
The Two Faces of Gestalt Theory	p. 206
Beyond the Double Truth	p. 217
Art as Religion	p. 227
In the Company of the Century	p. 236
Index	p. 245
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