The Split and the Structure

by Rudolf Arnheim

• ISBN13: 9780520204775
• ISBN10: 0520204778
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2023-12-22
• Publisher: University of California Press

Summary

Rudolf Arnheim's great forte is his ability to illuminate the perceptual processes that go into the making and reception of artworks--painting, sculpture, architecture, and film. Over the years, his pioneering mode of "reading" art from a unique scientific/philosophic perspective has garnered him an established and devoted audience. That audience will take pleasure in Arnheim's most recent collection of essays, one that covers a range of topics and includes titles such as "Outer Space and Inner Space," "What Is an Aesthetic Fact?," "As I Saw Children's Art," "Two Ways of Being Human," "Consciousness--an Island of Images," and "From Chaos to Wholeness." The notion of structure is Arnheim's guide in these explorations. Most of the essays examine the nature of structure affirmatively: how it comes about, its incentives and objectives, its celebration of perfection. He is interested in how artists grope for structure to shape powerful, enlightening images, and how a scientist's search for truth is a search for structure. Writing with enviable clarity, even when deploying complex arguments, Arnheim makes it easy and exciting to follow him as he thinks. America is not abundantly supplied with "public intellectuals" such as Rudolf Arnheim--to have his writings with us is cause for celebration. "The word 'structure' appears for good reason in the title of this collection. . . . Structure seems to be needed as an arbiter wherever this civilization of ours is split by selfish interests and fighting for either/or decisions. The essays want to speak with the voice of reason, because they want to show how the parts require the whole."

Table of Contents

Foreword
The Split and the Structure	p. 3
Learning by What Is Around	p. 13
Two Sources of Cognition	p. 17
The Two Authenticities of the Photographic Media	p. 24
The Way of the Crafts	p. 33
Outer Space and Inner Space	p. 42
Inside and Outside in Architecture	p. 45
Drawings in Design	p. 52
Notes on Religious Architecture	p. 57
What Is an Aesthetic Fact?	p. 65
From Pleasure to Contemplation	p. 73
The Symbolism of Light	p. 78
A God's Perfection	p. 83
Gauguin's Homage to Honesty	p. 85
The Echo of the Mountain	p. 92
Deus ex Machina	p. 97
A Maverick in Art History	p. 104
Learning by Looking and Thinking	p. 113
As I Saw Children's Art	p. 120
Artistry in Retardation	p. 126
A System of Expressive Movement	p. 133
The Face and the Mind behind It	p. 139
Consciousness - an Island of Images	p. 144
Form as Creation	p. 151
From Chaos to Wholeness	p. 156
Two Ways of Being Human	p. 165
Lemonade and the Perceiving Mind	p. 169
The Dynamics of Problem Solving	p. 174
Acknowledgments	p. 179
Index	p. 181
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