Rudolf Arnheim TOWARD A

PSYCHOLOGY OF ART
COLLECTED ESSAYS

University of Calfornia Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles

INTRODUCTION

A pyramid of science is under construction. The ambition of the build­

ers is eventually to “cover” all things, mental and physical, human and
natural, animate and inanimate, by a few rules. The pyramid will look
sharp enough at the peak, but toward the base it will vanish inevitably
in a fog of stimulating ignorance like one of those mountains that dissolve
in the emptiness of untouched silk in Chinese brush paintings. For as
the base broadens to encompass an ever greater refinement of species,
those few sturdy rules will intertwine in endless complexity and form
patterns so intricate as to appear untouchable by reason.
The prospect is challenging but also frightening. In particular, we
may feel tempted to approach the individuality of human nature,
human actions, and human creations in an attitude of defeatist awe. To
reject all generalization in this field looks good. Who would not like to
be the one who respects the ultimate mystery of all things? With the
smile of the sage one can, without effort, watch the sacrilegious and
clumsy manipulations of the professors. It is an attitude that triumphs in
conversation and noncommittal criticism. Unfortunately it gets us no­
where.
Psychology as a humanistic science is beginning to emerge from an
uneasy rapprochement between the philosophical and poetical interpre­
tations of the mind on the one hand and the experimental investigations
of muscle, nerve, and gland on the other. And barely are we getting used
 2 INTRODUCTION

to what such a science of the mind might be like, when we are faced
with attempts to deal scientifically with the most delicate, the most in­
tangible, and the most human among the human manifestations. We
attempt a psychology of art.
It is a recent example of the many cross-connections that are being
established, during the construction of the great pyramid, between thus
far unrelated disciplines of knowledge. “Psychology of Art”—there is a
moment of silence during which a person confronted with this notion
for the first time tries hastily to reconcile an approach and a subject
matter, psychology and art, which do not seem to relate well. O yes, at
second thought there appear some fleeting connotations: Leonardo’s vul­
ture, Beethoven’s nephew, Van Gogh’s ear. The prospect does not
please the friends of the arts, and it may worry the psychologist.
'The papers collected in this book are based on the assumption that
art, as any other activity of the mind, is subject to psychology, accessible
to understanding, and needed for any comprehensive survey of mental
functioning. The author believes, furthermore, that the science of psy­
chology is not limited to measurements under controlled laboratory con­
ditions, but must comprise all attempts to obtain generalizations by
means of facts as thoroughly established and concepts as well defined as
the investigated situation permits. Therefore the psychological findings
offered or referred to in these papers range all the way from experiments
in the perception of shape or observations on the art work of children to
broad deliberations on the nature of images or of inspiration and con­
templation. It is also assumed that every area of general psychology calls
for applications to art. The study of perception applies to the effects of
shape, color, movement, and expression in the visual arts. Motivation
raises the question of what needs are fulfilled by the production and
reception of art. The psychology of the normal and the disturbed person­
ality searches the work of art for manifestations of individual attitudes.
And social psychology relates the artist and his contribution to his fellow-
men
A systematic book on the psychology of art would have to survey
relevant work in all of these areas. My papers undertake nothing of the
kind. They are due to one man’s outlook and interest, and they report
on whatever happened to occur to him. They are presented together be­
cause they turn out to be concerned with a limited number of common
themes. Often, but unintentionally, a hint in one paper is expanded to
full exposition in another, and different applications of one and the
same concept are found in different papers. I can only hope that the
 INTRODUCTION 3

many overlappings will act as unifying reinforcements rather than as

repetitions.
These papers represent much of the output of the quarter of a cen­
tury during which I have been privileged to live, study, and teach in the
United States. To me, they are not so much the steps of a development
as the gradual spelling-out of a position. For this reason, I have grouped
them systematically, not chronologically. For the same reason, I did not
hesitate to change the words I wrote years ago wherever I thought I
could clarify their meaning. Removed from my original intimacy with
the content, I approached the text as an unprepared reader, and when I
stumbled, I tried to repair the road. In some instances, I recast whole
sections, not in order to bring them up to date, but in the hope of saying
better what I meant at the time.
Some of the earlier papers led to my book, Art and Visual Percep­
tion, which was written in 1951 and first published in 1954. Sections of
the articles on perceptual abstraction, on the Gestalt theory of expres­
sion, and on Henry Moore are incorporated in that book. Others con­
tinued where the book left off, for instance, the attempts to describe
more explicitly the symbolism conveyed by visual form. The short piece
on inspiration provided the substance for the introductory chapter on
creativity in my more recent book, Picasso’s Guernica. Finally, in re­
reading the material, I was surprised to find how many passages point to
what is shaping up as my next task, namely, a presentation of visual
thinking as the common and necessary way of productive problem solv­
ing in any human activity.
Ten of the papers in this book were first published in the Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism. To mention this is to express my indebted­
ness to the only scholarly periodical in the United States devoted to the
theory of art. In particular, Thomas Munro, its first editor, showed a great
trust in the contribution of psychology. He made me feel at home
among the philosophers, art historians, and literary critics whose lively
propositions inhabit the hostel he founded and sustained. To him, as
well as to my friends of the University of California Press, who are now
publishing my fourth book, I wish to say that much of what I thought
about in these years might not have been cast into final writing, had it
not been for their sympathy, which encouraged the novice and keeps a
critical eye on the more self-assured pro.
There are a few scientific papers here, originally written for psycholog­
ical journals but free, I hope, of the terminological incrustation that
would hide their meaning from sight. There are essays for the educated
4 INTRODUCTION

friend of the arts. And there are speeches, intended to suggest practical
consequences for art education, for the concerns of the artist, and for
the function of art in our time. These public lectures are hardly the prod­
ucts of a missionary temperament. In fact, I marveled why anybody
would go to a theorist for counsel, illumination, and reassurance in prac­
tical matters. However, when I responded to such requests I noticed,
bewildered and delighted, that some of my findings pointed to tangible
applications, which were taken to be useful.