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Rudolf Arnheim

Rudolf Arnheim Books

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Visual Thinking

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Film as Art

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“Nothing is more humbling than to look with a strong magnifying glass at an insect so tiny that the naked eye sees only the barest speck and to discover that nevertheless it is sculpted and articulated and striped with the same care and imagination as a zebra. Apparently it does not occur to nature whether or not a creature is within our range of vision, and the suspicion arises that even the zebra was not designed for our benefit.”

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Author:Rudolf Arnheim
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“Now the work of art also represents a state of final equilibrium, of accomplished order and maximum relative entropy, and there are those who resent it. But art is not meant to stop the stream of life. Within a narrow span of duration and space the work of art concentrates a view of the human condition; and sometimes it marks the steps of progression, just as a man climbing the dark stairs of a medieval tower assures himself by the changing sights glimpsed through its narrow windows that he is getting somewhere after all.”

MenHumansArtSometimesStatesOrderDarkSpaceViewsStepsConditionsArt IsWindowSightMarkFinalsStreamsAccomplishedWorks Of ArtClimbingRelativeHuman ConditionTowersMaximumStairsMedievalProgressionResentEquilibriumDurationEntropy
Book:Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order
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“No longer can we consider what the artist does to be a self-contained activity, mysteriously inspired from above, unrelated and unrelatable to other human activities. Instead, we recognize the exalted kind of seeing that leads to the creation of great art as an outgrowth of the humbler and more common activity of the eyes in everyday life. Just as the prosaic search for information is "artistic" because it involves giving and finding shape and meaning, so the artist's conceiving is an instrument of life, a refined way of understanding who and where we are.”

WayGivingHumansKindDoeArtSelfEyeArtistUnderstandingCommonSeeingInformationCreationActivityShapesFindingsInstrumentsInspiredEverydayArtisticEveryday LifeGreat ArtRefinedExaltedHuman ActivitySelf ContainedConceiving
Book:Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye
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“But art not only exploits the variety of appearances, it also affirms the validity of individual outlook and thereby admits a further dimension of variety. Since the shapes of art do not primarily bear witness to the objective nature of the things for which they stand, they can reflect individual interpretation and invention.”

ArtIndividualBearsShapesAppearanceInventionObjectivesWitnessVarietyDimensionsInterpretationOutlookExploitsValidity
Book:Visual Thinking
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“Television is a new, hard test of our wisdom. If we succeed in mastering the new medium it will enrich us. But it can also put our mind to sleep. We must not forget that in the past the inability to transport immediate experience and to convey it to others made the use of language necessary and thus compelled the human mind to develop concepts. For in order to describe things one must draw the general from the specific; one must select, compare, think. When communication can be achieved by pointing with the finger, however, the mouth grows silent, the writing hand stops, and the mind shrinks.”

IfsThinkingWritingMindHumansMadeHardUseHandsPastOrderLanguageGrowsSleepForgetTelevisionCommunicationSucceedDrawsMouthsConceptsTestsSilentFingersMediumsCompareHuman MindCompelledInabilityPointingShrinksSelectTransportUse Of Language
Book:Film as Art
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“Some popular quotations smell of airless closets. They exhale the stale imagination of the intellectual lower middle class. "Suspension of disbelief" has become one of them. Dressed up as a scintillating double negation, it serves the pedestrian notion of art as illusion.”

ArtImaginationClassMiddleIntellectualIllusionNotionSmellMiddle ClassQuotationsClosetsDisbeliefDressed UpStaleNegationSuspensionPedestriansSuspension Of Disbelief
Book:Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest
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“It would be most wholesome if for at least twenty years art historians were forbidden to refer to any derivations. If they were not allowed to account for a work of art mainly by tracing where it comes from, they would have to deal with it in and by itself--which is what they are most needed for.”

IfsYearsArtWould BeDealsNeededAccountsTwentiesWorks Of ArtHistorianForbiddenTracing
Book:Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest
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“Orderliness by itself is not sufficient to account for the nature of organized systems in general or for those created by man in particular. Mere orderliness leads to increasing impoverishment and finally to the lowest possible level of structure, no longer clearly distinguishable from chaos, which is the absence of order. A counterprinciple is needed, to which orderliness is secondary. It must supply what is to be ordered.”

MenOrderLevelsParticularNeededAccountsStructureMereChaosAbsenceSufficientOrganizedLowestOrderliness
Author:Rudolf Arnheim
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“What, then, is the basic difference between today's computer and an intelligent being? It is that the computer can be made to seebut not to perceive. What matters here is not that the computer is without consciousness but that thus far it is incapable of the spontaneous grasp of pattern--a capacity essential to perception and intelligence.”

MadeMatterTodayDifferencesConsciousnessEssentialsComputerPerceptionCapacityIntelligentPatternsPerceiveWhat MattersIncapableSpontaneous
Book:Visual Thinking
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“From building a fire one can learn something about artistic composition. If you use only small kindling and large logs, the fire will quickly eat up the small pieces but will not become strong enough to attack the large ones. You must supply a scale of sizes from the smallest to the largest. The human eye also will not make its way into a painting or building unless a continuum of shapes leads from the small to the large, from the large to the small.”

IfsWayHumansEnoughUseEyeStrongFirePiecesBuildingPaintingShapesSizeScalesArtisticSmallestCompositionStrong EnoughContinuumHuman EyesSmall PiecesKindling
Author:Rudolf Arnheim
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“When the thing observed... is seen as an agglomeration of pieces, the details lose their meaning and the whole becomes unrecognizable. This is often true of snapshots in which no pattern of salient shapes organizes the mass of vague and complex nuances.”

WholeLosesPiecesShapesMassComplexesPatternsDetailsOrganizeVagueNuanceSnapshots
Book:Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye
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“The dance, just as the performance of the actor, is kinesthetic art, art of the muscle sense. The awareness of tension and relaxation within his own body, the sense of balance that distinguishes the proud stability of the vertical from the risky adventures of thrusting and falling--these are the tools of the dancer.”

ArtBodyFallActorsAwarenessAdventureProudBalanceToolsPerformancesDanceTensionMusclesDancerStabilityBalletRelaxationVerticalDance Performance
Book:Toward a Psychology of Art: Collected Essays
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“Nothing is more humbling than to look with a strong magnifying glass at an insect so tiny that the naked eye sees only the barest speck and to discover that nevertheless it is sculpted and articulated and striped with the same care and imagination.”

LooksEyeCareStrongImaginationHumilityPrideGlassesTinyNakedNeverthelessInsectsHumblingSpecksMagnifyingMagnifying GlassNaked Eyes
Book:Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest
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“Both art and science are bent on the understanding of the forces that shape existence, and both call for a dedication to what is. Neither of them can tolerate capricious subjectivity because both are subject to their criteria of truth. Both require precision, order, and discipline because no comprehensible statement can be made without these. Both accept the sensory world as what the Middle Ages called signatura regrum, the signature of things, but in quite different ways.”

WorldWayArtMadeDifferentAgeOrderForceUnderstandingExistenceAcceptingMiddleSubjectsDisciplineShapesStatementsDifferent WaysDedicationTolerateBentMiddle AgesCriteriaPrecisionSignaturesSubjectivitySensoryArt And ScienceCapricious
Author:Rudolf Arnheim
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“Climbing is a heroic liberating act; and height spontaneously symbolizes things of high value, be it in the value of worldly power or of spirituality. To rise in an elevator, balloon, or airplane is to experience being liberated from weight, sublimated, invested with superhuman abilities. In addition, to rise from the earth is to approach the realm of light and overview. Therefore the negative overcoming of weight is at the same time the positive achievement of enlightenment and an unobstructed outlook.”

LightEarthValuesSpiritualityAbilityAchievementApproachEnlightenmentNegativeOvercomingWeightHeightRealmsClimbingHeroicAirplaneWorldlyOutlookLiberatingLiberatedBalloonsElevatorsSuperhumanOverview
Book:The Dynamics of Architectural Form
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