“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 Source: Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye
“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 Source: Visual Thinking
“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
“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 Source: Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye
“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
