Part IV: A Response to Rudolf Arnheim's "To the Rescue of Art"

Leonardo

Part IV: A Response to Rudolf Arnheim's "To the Rescue of Art"Author(s): David CarrierSource: Leonardo, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1986), pp. 251-254Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1578246 .

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Theoretical Perspectives on the Arts, Sciences

and Technology Part IV: A Response to Rudolf Arnheim's

"To the Rescue of Art"

David Carrier

Reply by Rudolf Arnheim Comment by Steve Poleskie

Abstract-Rudolf Arnheim's essay "To the Rescue of Art" argues that David Carrier's discussion of 'aesthetic atheism' can be criticized by appeal to the vocabulary of gestalt psychology. In reply, Carrier explains the strengths and limitations of Arnheim's approach to aesthetics and argues that Arnheim's work does not effectively rescue art. Drawing on work discussed recently in Leonardo and further developing his earlier arguments, Carrier describes in a general way the problems he perceives to be inherent in Arnheim's analysis.

I. INTRODUCTION

I welcome Rudolf Arheim's "To the Rescue of Art" [1] because it offers a clear, well-argued challenge to my recent article "On the Possibility of Aesthetic Atheism: Philosophy and the Market in Art" [2]. His presentation of my account is accurate; and since his own views are interesting, our present disagreement provides a useful opportunity to offer a

general evaluation of his aesthetics. The aim of this column is to provoke debate, and with luck my argument may provoke him and other readers to further

response. Section II summarizes Arnheim's

general application of gestalt psychology to art, placing it within the historical context of the development of that branch of psychology. Section III indicates some problems with that account. In Section IV, I use three examples drawn from work discussed recently in Leonardo to suggest some limitations of Arnheim's general viewpoint as it relates to present- day art. In Section V, I build on this discussion by extending my earlier account of aesthetic atheism. Finally, in Section VI, since I have earlier indicated how my analysis developed out of my work as critic and aesthetician [3], I

suggest that Arnheim's position may also best be understood in its historical context. I believe that his gestalt psychology of art, far from giving a

Readers are invited to communicate with the section Editor at the Department of Philosophy, Carnegie- Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, U.S.A.

generally valid, universally true viewpoint, was prompted by his experience of early twentieth-century art.

II. THE GESTALT PSYCHOLOGIST'S THEORY OF

AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE

If gestalt psychology is correct, then aesthetic relativism and aesthetic atheism are untenable positions. Gestalt psychology was a response both to the weaknesses of nineteenth-century intro- spective psychology and to the subsequent denial by behaviorists that science should discuss the inner workings of the mind. The gestalt psychologist asserts that our response to visual forms is biologically determined:

visual experience corresponds to the totality of self-distributed processes in the visual sector of the brain, and ... all relations in visual space rest on functional relationships within this totality [4].

Thus, when I see a composition with a centered form as balanced and one with a massive shape on the right as unstable, it is because those visual patterns corres-

pond to such processes within my brain. Perhaps the most important claim of

gestalt psychology was that of over-

coming a major limitation of earlier psychologies by emphasizing the perception of forms ('Gestalt', German for

shape or form). When I see a massive

square to the right of a small sphere, I do not see a large square and a small sphere and then deduce their relationship: I see a

square-in-relation-to-a-sphere. Earlier

psychologies focused on the units of perception and thus had difficulty explaining the perception of relations; gestalt psychology claimed to solve this problem. To cite one famous example, when the clock strikes midnight, what I hear are not twelve individual sounds, but the unit, twelve-strokes-of-the-clock.

Though gestalt psychology is a general theory of visual perception, it is peculiarly well adapted to describing visual artworks. My example of a composition in the previous paragraph could be an abstract painting, and Arnheim argues that representational works also can be analyzed in terms of their visual patterns. Rembrandt's Christ at Emmaus, for example, presents the story "through the interaction of two compositional group- ings" [5]. One triangle "is centered on the figure of Christ... placed symmetrically between the two apostles"; a second "is shifted somewhat to the left, leaving room for a second apex". The religious significance of the scene is implied by these arrangements. If in one triangle Christ is at the head, in the other the high point is "the humblest figure of the group ... the servant". Rembrandt is not just juxtaposing two triangles, he is telling a Protestant's story about Christ through this arrangement.

What is richly rewarding in Arnheim's books is the wide range of traditional and modern examples he offers. He compares line drawings by Rembrandt and Matisse; "whereas the older artists [like Rembrandt] wishes to stress solid volume and clearly discernible depth, the modern ones [like Matisse] want to dematerialize

? 1986 ISAST Pergamon Journals Ltd. Printed in Great Britain. 0024-094X/86 $3.00+0.00

LEONARDO, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 251-256, 1986 251



objects and minimize space" [6]. Dis- cussing how forms create the perception of tension, he compares the brushwork of Frans Hals, van Gogh and Mondrian [7]. These examples indicate why he finds both aesthetic relativism and aesthetic atheism frankly absurd. If aesthetic perception depends upon principles defined by our brain structure, then it follows that we will, unavoidably, see the world according to those principles. Intelligent beings from another planet with differently structured brains might perceive the world differently and thus make different-looking art. We cannot, and so though much art today may be bad, its existence does not undermine the objectivity of aesthetic perception.

III. CRITICAL EVALUATION OF ARNHEIM'S CLAIMS

If Arnheim's claims are correct, then clearly they are very powerful. But is it obvious that his argument works? Arnheim's gestalt psychology of art can be questioned either by criticizing gestalt psychology itself or by critiquing his analysis of artworks. The thesis that visual patterns correspond to relations within the brain is not an experimental claim; gestalt psychologists did not undertake the study of neurology. Consequently, their claims are best viewed as generalizations about visual perception which require experimental verification. If the more recent school of cognitive psychology has turned away from gestalt psychology, this is in large part because the laws of gestalt have been difficult to define. Evaluation of psychologists' theories is not an easy task for nonspecialists, but I believe that a survey of the recent literature shows that psychologists studying perception today are not especially concerned with gestalt psychology [8].

What concerns the historian of art is the relation between the ways earlier cultures described art and Arnheim's account. For Arnheim, Piero della Francesca's Resurrection "sets the unrest of temporal material life in opposition to the monumental serenity of Christ, who, at the top of the pyramid, rules between life and death" [9]. Unlike an art historian, he does not mention how fifteenth-century viewers thought about such images, Piero's symbolism, or other near-contemporary versions of the scene [10]. Another example, much discussed recently, is Velazquez's Las Meninas. A complex three-way relation exists between the figures depicted within the painting, the viewer, and the king and queen who are seen only as reflections in the mirror

on the far wall [11]. Some historians claim that the perspective is so arranged that the viewer is in the imagined position of the royal couple who would be standing before the picture; others argue that the perspective is used to create an ambiguous relation between the space within the painting and the area in front of its surface within which the viewer stands. Arnheim asserts that "the painter stands large in the spacious foreground, turned away from their majesties. He is subservient only to his work, the large canvas that stands before him" [12]. An art historian would demand historical evidence for this conclusion. Is it likely that a painter in the aristocratic Spanish court would make a painting that was centered upon, and thus glorified, the artist himself ? The alternative suggestion, that the king and queen-though they appear small-are at the picture's center because they rule the court, is intuitively more plausible.

Arnheim's handling of such cases is interesting. If gestalt psychology is correct, then evidence gathered by art historians should only confirm his reading of these pictures. For if the patterns of picture perception are fixed in the brain, then whatever contemporaries of Piero and Velazquez said they saw in these paintings would be in accordance with the laws of gestalt psychology. Perhaps there is some important overlap between the ways that these painters thought about composition and the vocabulary of gestalt psychology. But Arnheim does not test that hypothesis.

IV. THREE EXAMPLES FROM RECENT ART

If one critical question about gestalt psychology concerns how it analyzes traditional works, another concerns what it can say about recent art. Consider three examples drawn from work discussed recently in Leonardo.

Dustin Shuler skins automobiles, cutting them apart into sections which are then rearranged on a flat surface. "To look at something everyone else looks at and yet to see it differently is the gift... of the artist" [13]. By thus

transforming familiar objects, he either provides pleasure or provokes anger- and gets us to think about automobiles. As he points out, on freeways we can see both "trucks loaded with shiny new cars" and smashed cars "heading for the harbor scrap yards"; his activity provides a novel viewpoint on that industrial activity.

Erza Orion creates sculptures in the Negev desert. One involved clearing a

path in a gully; "For three winters I observed the results of the floods running through the work and modified it slowly, in relation to the weathering process" [14]. The sculptor, he suggests, does in a small way what geological processes accomplish over long time periods. Here the encounter between work and viewer "depends upon a common infrastructure -emotional, conceptual, cultural" in which "a host of keyed-up, divergent, multi-level associations wait to be triggered by the sculpture". The work is richly suggestive if we bring to it a wide range of such associations.

Steve Poleskie, originally a painter, performs in an aerobatic biplane: "the machine is the medium ... the flight of my airplane exists, like a dance, as a remembrance of something seen. The art is in the process of communication between the doer and the observer" [15]. He is interested not so much in creating an image with the smoke trails from his plane as in offering an experience that could not be found merely by looking at a picture. "I feel that art must reflect the sum of human knowledge in an age"; the airplane, so important on a practical level, here serves as an instrument of fantasy.

These examples all involve concerns that became generally important in the 1960s. Like the conceptual artists, Shuler is interested not in producing beautiful objects but in getting us to think about the meaning of art-making. Like many contemporary artists, Orion works out- side the gallery space. Like many performance artists, Poleskie creates not objects but a novel experience. Of course, much art discussed in Leonardo is more traditional, but these three examples indicate that today such concerns are important to many artists.

Here, then, is my challenge to Arnheim: What can gestalt psychology tell us about such works? Shuler's skinned cars, Orion's landscapes and Poleskie's performances do not fit easily within the framework of gestalt psychology, which emphasizes the perception of a system of spatial relations. These artists are interested less in creating an object that is to be perceived than in presenting a conception of art. Arnheim may of course reply that the widespread interest in such works shows what is wrong with our culture. Art, he says, "lets us experience the powers constituting the world in clarified, orderly and impressive images", and to the extent that these artists fail to create impressive images, they do not meet this challenge. But it is also possible to think Arnheim's vision of art altogether too traditional. Perhaps no

Carrier, Theoretical Perspectives 252



single theory of art can usefully analyze everything that is called art; but when Arnheim's theory ceases to be relevant to much challenging new work, we may legitimately question his claim to have refuted aesthetic relativism.

V. AESTHETIC RELATIVISM AND AESTHETIC ATHEISM REVISITED

Let us return to discuss aesthetic relativism. Arnheim argues:

responses to works of art cannot be ... arbitrary ... with enough psychological insight we are able to understand and even predict what will happen when a mind of known qualities receives the equally known properties of a piece of art [16].

What he fails to recognize, I believe, is that here he undermines his argument against relativism.

Consider three examples that the relativist might cite. On 13 April 1861, Sir Charles Eastlake, the director of the National Gallery, London and a man who knew Italian painting very well, purchased for ?241 Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ [17]. At the time, paintings by Murillo were valued at more than ?9000. Despite his acumen, Eastlake was uncertain whether the Piero was a good enough work to put on public display. Since today we consider Piero a much greater artist than Murillo and this work a masterpiece, Eastlake's judgment is astonishing. In late nineteenth-century France, G6rome and Bouguereau were famous, Degas and Cezanne scorned. By the mid-twentieth century, this judgment of relative value had been reversed. Today works by all these painters are found in the Metropolitan Museum, a further reversal of taste which has angered those critics who feel that Bouguereau and Gerome do not belong in the same museum with Degas and Cezanne [18]. In October 1948, Life published a round-table discussion in which most of the 'eminent authorities' involved either ridiculed or found in- comprehensible the work of Jackson Pollock [19]. Today he is generally thought the greatest modern American painter. Though the reputations of some artists have remained fixed, the history of taste thus shows that a certain degree of relativism is a fact.

The implications of this fact for Arnheim's account are complex. We might grant that when we know enough about someone's beliefs, we can understand how that person will respond to artworks; it is easy to imagine why Piero is better appreciated today than he was 100 years ago. But how can such an

analysis of the changing standards of taste be compatible with the belief that the laws of the gestalt psychologist apply universally? Perhaps I overestimate the force of Arnheim's laws; maybe his account explains how we perceive without predicting what we will admire. But in that case, he has no real argument against relativism; changes in aesthetic judgment would be compatible with fixed laws of perception.

So far I have said nothing about aesthetic atheism. But here also I would argue that Arnheim's claims are too vague to undermine successfully my position. He writes: "A good painting is one that is good for satisfying certain needs; and these needs vary". Great art, he adds, has "intensity, depth, originality, essentiality, clarity, truthfulness, and so forth" [20]. Leaving aside African sculpture, Chinese painting or Mayan carvings, how could we productively apply this account even to European art? Today Byzantine icons, Renaissance altarpieces and abstract paintings are gathered in museums, and we think of them as having common qualities. This, however, may not be consistent with understanding them as they were viewed in their original context [21]. An altarpiece served, first and foremost, as a spiritual guide; to evaluate it in Arnheim's terms is implicitly to secularize that work. Giotto's Lamentation, Arnheim writes,

in formal terms calls for an interplay between horizontal and the vertical.... The falling movement of death occurs from the right to the left, and is superseded by the rising movement toward resurrection from the left to the right [22].

This apt description of the painting differs greatly from the description any Renaissance writer would have given and thus makes it important to ask whether the vocabulary of gestalt psychology does not distort the original meaning of the picture [23].

This is one reason why Arnheim's claim that we cannot doubt "the genuineness" of the aesthetic experience of artists and art lovers carries less force than he seems to think. Consider a parallel with religious experience. No one would doubt that many ancient Greeks had a 'genuine religious experience': Zeus seemed real to them. Saying this, however, is compatible with noting that their gods never existed, just as ack- nowledging the fervor of a Christian's belief is compatible with asking whether the Christian God exists. Aesthetic atheism cannot be defeated, then, by admitting that in the past as well as today many people have had genuine aesthetic

experience. Perhaps our descendants will find our fascination with art as baffling as we find the belief in Zeus. I write as if this were a remote possibility, and so it is for Arnheim, myself and readers of Leonardo. But within our culture, though much

respect is paid to art, many people care or understand little about it. As an exercise, I once asked my aesthetics students to go to a museum and record, without being obtrusive, the ideas of a few viewers. They found this so discouraging that I have never had the heart to repeat the assignment. Many people are, effectively, aesthetic atheists. While this says nothing about the validity of that position, it does undermine the claim that aesthetic values are universal, as Arnheim seems to claim.

VI. THE ORIGIN OF ARNHEIM'S POSITION: A SPECULATIVE

ANALYSIS

My essay on aesthetic atheism reflects my interest in the relation between aesthetic experience and artworld institu- tions. I agree with Arnheim that it is naive "to believe that the art market can be used to tell us what is art" [24]. But that market, together with museums and art journals, does surely influence how we think about art. Just as I would acknowledge that my own perspective is thus in part sociological, so I would suggest that Arnheim's position has strengths and limitations that are best understood by reference to his place in the history of aesthetics.

Someone looking at paintings by Giotto, Piero and Cezanne might easily wonder what these different artifacts had in common. Here are two ways of dealing with this problem. Gombrich argues that the history of art is the story of the progressive discovery of better ways of making naturalistic images; for him, art must be understood in these historical terms [25]. By contrast, Arnheim's view seems curiously static. Arp and Picasso, he says, differed from older masters in that they created a "fluctuating and ambiguous world" [26]. Like Piero, Arp created works obeying the laws of gestalt psychology. For Gombrich, emphasizing the tradition of art is important because he thinks that the masters from Giotto to the present are engaged in a common task. For Arnheim, it is important to believe that old and new works share properties that, because they are grounded in our neurology, are somehow objective:

Perception of expression fulfills its spiritual mission only if... it permits us to realize that the forces stirring in ourselves are only individual examples

Carrier, Theoretical Perspectives 253



of the same forces acting throughout the universe [27].

These striking words evoke traditional religious concerns, which seem surprising coming from a secular thinker.

Arnheim published his earliest works at a time when Germany was destructively obsessed with irrationality and nation- alism. In response, he asserted then, and asserts now, that artistic values are universal. Good art helps "to develop human nature to its fullest and richest realization" [28]. Here he echoes another, happier German tradition that dates from the late eighteenth century. Schiller wrote:

Taste alone brings harmony into society, because it fosters harmony in the individual. All other forms of perception divide man... only the aesthetic mode of perception makes of him a whole ... [29].

In his twentieth-century vocabulary, Arnheim makes similar claims; and his work shows the long life of this tradition.

I am not sure that the study of present- day art justifies this optimistic viewpoint. Artworks can involve intensity, depth and originality without necessarily con-

tributing constructively to the realization of human nature. Admitting this is not to advocate or give in to nihilism, but to

suggest that looking to art for the fulfillment of these important needs may place altogether too much weight on it. Like Arnheim, I care about art and hope that a society will be created in which human nature will achieve its fullest

possible realization. Unlike him, I am uncertain whether art will help create such a society. In any case, I remain

skeptical about his claim that gestalt psychology provides either an adequate defense of the objectivity of aesthetic value or a knockdown critique of aesthetic atheism. Arnheim's work is

historically important, but, in my opinion, it is of limited relevance to much art

today.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. Rudolf Arnheim, "To the Rescue of Art", Editorial, Leonardo 19, No. 2, 95-97 (1986).

2. David Carrier, "On the Possibility of Aesthetic Atheism: Philosophy and the Market in Art", Leonardo 18, 35-38 (1985).

3. David Carrier, "Art and Its Market," Richard Hertz, ed., Theories of Con- temporary Art (Englewood Cliffs, New

of the same forces acting throughout the universe [27].

These striking words evoke traditional religious concerns, which seem surprising coming from a secular thinker.

Arnheim published his earliest works at a time when Germany was destructively obsessed with irrationality and nation- alism. In response, he asserted then, and asserts now, that artistic values are universal. Good art helps "to develop human nature to its fullest and richest realization" [28]. Here he echoes another, happier German tradition that dates from the late eighteenth century. Schiller wrote:

Taste alone brings harmony into society, because it fosters harmony in the individual. All other forms of perception divide man... only the aesthetic mode of perception makes of him a whole ... [29].

In his twentieth-century vocabulary, Arnheim makes similar claims; and his work shows the long life of this tradition.

I am not sure that the study of present- day art justifies this optimistic viewpoint. Artworks can involve intensity, depth and originality without necessarily con-

tributing constructively to the realization of human nature. Admitting this is not to advocate or give in to nihilism, but to

suggest that looking to art for the fulfillment of these important needs may place altogether too much weight on it. Like Arnheim, I care about art and hope that a society will be created in which human nature will achieve its fullest

possible realization. Unlike him, I am uncertain whether art will help create such a society. In any case, I remain

skeptical about his claim that gestalt psychology provides either an adequate defense of the objectivity of aesthetic value or a knockdown critique of aesthetic atheism. Arnheim's work is

historically important, but, in my opinion, it is of limited relevance to much art

today.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. Rudolf Arnheim, "To the Rescue of Art", Editorial, Leonardo 19, No. 2, 95-97 (1986).

2. David Carrier, "On the Possibility of Aesthetic Atheism: Philosophy and the Market in Art", Leonardo 18, 35-38 (1985).

3. David Carrier, "Art and Its Market," Richard Hertz, ed., Theories of Con- temporary Art (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1985) pp. 193-205.

4. Wolfgang Koehler, Gestalt Psychology (New York: Mentor, 1975) p. 127.

5. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Per- ception (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1969) p. 269.

Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1985) pp. 193-205. 4. Wolfgang Koehler, Gestalt Psychology

(New York: Mentor, 1975) p. 127. 5. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Per-

ception (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1969) p. 269.

6. Arnheim [5] p. 216. 7. Arnheim [5] p. 415. 8. See D. Carrier, Review of Margaret A.

Hagen, ed., The Perception of Pictures, Leonardo 15, 250-251 (1982).

9. Arnheim [5] p. 420. 10. Compare Kenneth Clark, Piero Della

Francesca (London: Phaidon, 1969) p. 57 and Margaret Daly Davis, Piero della Francesca's Mathematical Treatises (Ravenna: Londo Editore, n.d.), which discusses Piero's knowledge of perspective.

11. For the most complete recent discussion, see Joel Snyder, "Las Meninas and the Mirror of the Prince", Critical Inquiry 11, 539-572 (1985). D. Carrier, "Spectators and Paintings", The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (forthcoming) provides yet another viewpoint.

12. Rudolf Arnheim, The Power of the Center (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1982) p. 48. For a critical evaluation, see Rosalind Krauss, "Seeing As Believing", Raritan 2, 84-85 (1982).

13. Dustin Shuler, "Skinning Cars in the American West: Transforming Auto- mobile Bodies into Relief Sculptures", Leonardo 17, 241-244 (1984).

14. Ezra Orion, "Sculpture in the Solar System: From Geologically Based Earth- works to Astro-Sculpture", Leonardo 18, 157-160 (1985).

15. Steve Poleskie, "Art and Flight: Historical Origins to Contemporary Works", Leonardo, 18, 69-80 (1985).

16. Arnheim [1] p. 96. 17. David Robertson, Sir Charles Eastlake

and the Victorian Art World (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1978) p. 197.

18. Francis Haskell, Rediscoveries in Art (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1980) p. 180.

19. Elizabeth Frank, Pollock (New York: Abbeville Press, 1983) p. 75.

20. Arnheim [1] pp. 96-97. 21. See D. Carrier, "Art and Its Preserva-

tion", The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 43, 291-300 (1985).

22. Arnheim [5] p. 420. 23. See D. Carrier, "Ekphrasis and Inter-

pretation: Two Modes of Art History Writing", The British Journal of Aesthetics (forthcoming).

24. Arnheim [1] p. 96. 25. For references and full discussion see D.

Carrier, "Gombrich on Art Historical Explanations," Leonardo 16, 91-96 (1983).

26. Arnheim [5] p. 226; see also Rudolf Arnheim, Visual Thinking (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), Chaps. 1 and 9.

27. Arnheim [5] p. 434. 28. Arnheim [1] p. 96. 29. Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic

Education of Man, E. M. Wilkinson and L. A. Willoughby, trans. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967) p. 215.

6. Arnheim [5] p. 216. 7. Arnheim [5] p. 415. 8. See D. Carrier, Review of Margaret A.

Hagen, ed., The Perception of Pictures, Leonardo 15, 250-251 (1982).

9. Arnheim [5] p. 420. 10. Compare Kenneth Clark, Piero Della

Francesca (London: Phaidon, 1969) p. 57 and Margaret Daly Davis, Piero della Francesca's Mathematical Treatises (Ravenna: Londo Editore, n.d.), which discusses Piero's knowledge of perspective.

11. For the most complete recent discussion, see Joel Snyder, "Las Meninas and the Mirror of the Prince", Critical Inquiry 11, 539-572 (1985). D. Carrier, "Spectators and Paintings", The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (forthcoming) provides yet another viewpoint.

12. Rudolf Arnheim, The Power of the Center (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1982) p. 48. For a critical evaluation, see Rosalind Krauss, "Seeing As Believing", Raritan 2, 84-85 (1982).

13. Dustin Shuler, "Skinning Cars in the American West: Transforming Auto- mobile Bodies into Relief Sculptures", Leonardo 17, 241-244 (1984).

14. Ezra Orion, "Sculpture in the Solar System: From Geologically Based Earth- works to Astro-Sculpture", Leonardo 18, 157-160 (1985).

15. Steve Poleskie, "Art and Flight: Historical Origins to Contemporary Works", Leonardo, 18, 69-80 (1985).

16. Arnheim [1] p. 96. 17. David Robertson, Sir Charles Eastlake

and the Victorian Art World (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1978) p. 197.

18. Francis Haskell, Rediscoveries in Art (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1980) p. 180.

19. Elizabeth Frank, Pollock (New York: Abbeville Press, 1983) p. 75.

20. Arnheim [1] pp. 96-97. 21. See D. Carrier, "Art and Its Preserva-

tion", The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 43, 291-300 (1985).

22. Arnheim [5] p. 420. 23. See D. Carrier, "Ekphrasis and Inter-

pretation: Two Modes of Art History Writing", The British Journal of Aesthetics (forthcoming).

24. Arnheim [1] p. 96. 25. For references and full discussion see D.

Carrier, "Gombrich on Art Historical Explanations," Leonardo 16, 91-96 (1983).

26. Arnheim [5] p. 226; see also Rudolf Arnheim, Visual Thinking (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), Chaps. 1 and 9.

27. Arnheim [5] p. 434. 28. Arnheim [1] p. 96. 29. Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic

Education of Man, E. M. Wilkinson and L. A. Willoughby, trans. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967) p. 215.

REPLY BY RUDOLF ARNHEIM

In his response to my Editorial in the present issue David Carrier claims that I am criticizing his views by appealing to the 'vocabulary' of gestalt psychology.

REPLY BY RUDOLF ARNHEIM

In his response to my Editorial in the present issue David Carrier claims that I am criticizing his views by appealing to the 'vocabulary' of gestalt psychology.

Actually I am not much interested in vocabulary; I am after what in the olden days was called the truth. Now truth comes at many levels. Some truths concern the physical or psychological facts of nature so fundamentally that they apply everywhere. They are therefore what Carrier calls "curiously static", that is, permanent, although it may take us forever to approach them. Other truths are limited to more and more specific conditions. For my part, I confess to be mostly interested in what we all have in common, which leaves plenty of room for people absorbed by what comes and goes on the passing scene.

Now then: to assert that according to gestalt psychology the response to visual form is biologically determined is correct but one-sided. Gestalt psychology has made indeed a substantial contribution by showing that the organization of visual patterns is controlled by internal neurological and physical mechanisms, among them the tendency toward the simplest attainable structure. Equally basic to the gestalt approach, however, is the respect for the stimulus, that is, the axiomatic assumption that the images of the sensory world come to us not as amorphous raw material but as structures. It is the interaction between the images of the outer objects imposed upon our senses and the formative principles governing the processes in the receptor areas of the brain, together with all the personal and cultural idiosyncrasies, that account for our perceptual experiences. This fact seems to me so fundamental that on the cover of a new book of my essays I have a diagram illustrating this interaction-a diagram first used in the introduction to my book on architecture. And it is this interaction that compels me to accuse the so-called relativism in aesthetic theory of destructive one- sidedness.

What is wrong with relativism is not its insistence that different people at different times and places perceive things differently. There can be no disagreement on that score. What matters is the unwarranted conclusion that the world as given has no character of its own and that therefore our percepts and values are entirely at the mercy of subjective preferences and accidental conventions. Such a mis- interpretation undermines our well- founded trust in the objective nature of what reaches us through our senses. It is easy to conceive of a world in which

Actually I am not much interested in vocabulary; I am after what in the olden days was called the truth. Now truth comes at many levels. Some truths concern the physical or psychological facts of nature so fundamentally that they apply everywhere. They are therefore what Carrier calls "curiously static", that is, permanent, although it may take us forever to approach them. Other truths are limited to more and more specific conditions. For my part, I confess to be mostly interested in what we all have in common, which leaves plenty of room for people absorbed by what comes and goes on the passing scene.

Now then: to assert that according to gestalt psychology the response to visual form is biologically determined is correct but one-sided. Gestalt psychology has made indeed a substantial contribution by showing that the organization of visual patterns is controlled by internal neurological and physical mechanisms, among them the tendency toward the simplest attainable structure. Equally basic to the gestalt approach, however, is the respect for the stimulus, that is, the axiomatic assumption that the images of the sensory world come to us not as amorphous raw material but as structures. It is the interaction between the images of the outer objects imposed upon our senses and the formative principles governing the processes in the receptor areas of the brain, together with all the personal and cultural idiosyncrasies, that account for our perceptual experiences. This fact seems to me so fundamental that on the cover of a new book of my essays I have a diagram illustrating this interaction-a diagram first used in the introduction to my book on architecture. And it is this interaction that compels me to accuse the so-called relativism in aesthetic theory of destructive one- sidedness.

What is wrong with relativism is not its insistence that different people at different times and places perceive things differently. There can be no disagreement on that score. What matters is the unwarranted conclusion that the world as given has no character of its own and that therefore our percepts and values are entirely at the mercy of subjective preferences and accidental conventions. Such a mis- interpretation undermines our well- founded trust in the objective nature of what reaches us through our senses. It is easy to conceive of a world in which everything is objectively given-J.J. Gibson has proposed a naive ontology of this kind. It is equally easy to conceive of a world in which everything is purely subjective-this view is presently in

everything is objectively given-J.J. Gibson has proposed a naive ontology of this kind. It is equally easy to conceive of a world in which everything is purely subjective-this view is presently in

Carrier, Theoretical Perspectives Carrier, Theoretical Perspectives 254 254



Documents

Part IV: A Response to Rudolf Arnheim's "To the Rescue of Art"