You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
A list of the chapter headings of this book may serve as the best indication of its scope and bias. They are: Balance, Shape, Form, Growth, Space, Light, Colour, Movement, Tension, and Expression. Professor Arnheim approaches the subject of art from the angle of the Gestalt theory, and the chapters concerned deal lucidly and persuasively with the principal tenets of this school. Whatever the ultimate fate of the Gestalt hypothesis may be, it has certainly drawn attention to phenomena which interest the artist: the organization of visual patterns, and the predisposition of the human mind towards simple configurations. A book such as this, which sets out, with a wealth of detail, the application of these laboratory observations to problems of art and art appreciation, is therefore most welcome. Perhaps its value would have been even greater if the author's ambitions had reached no further. Not that he overrates his own contribution; he is most anxious in the Preface not to give the impression of finality. But he seems less clear about the reasons why a 'psychology of the creative eye' can never take us very far. After all, it is not the eye (nor the visual cortex) which is creative in the real meaning of the term. Those who postulate a neuro-physiological basis for our bias towards simple and balanced shapes must recognize that there are other tendencies in us which delight in complexity, tension, and, most of all, the domination of chaos and its taming into harmonies. The author is aware of these conflicting tendencies. He is eloquent in his denunciation of the idea that any balanced configuration is ipso facto a work of art. Indeed he is critical of the theories of abstract painting which are oblivious of the need for 'content'. Unfortunately the author's theoretical equipment makes it hard for him to discuss what he means by 'content'. His remarks on Symbolism in general and on what he calls the Psycho-analytic Way in particular cannot be taken seri