The Psychology Of Visual Art

A contemporary and interdisciplinary perspective on the study of art, connecting and integrating ideas from across the humanities and sciences.

A 50-year-old classic, which was revised and expanded in 1974. Explains how the eye organizes visual material according to psychological laws.

Why do we enjoy art? What inspires us to create artistic works? How can brain science help us understand our taste in art? The Psychology of Art provides an eclectic introduction to the myriad ways in which psychology can help us understand and appreciate creative activities. Exploring how we perceive everything from colour to motion, the book examines art-making as a form of human behaviour that stretches back throughout history as a constant source of inspiration, conflict and conversation. It also considers how factors such as fakery, reproduction technology and sexism influence our judgements about art. By asking what psychological science has to do with artistic appreciation, The Psychology of Art introduces the reader to new ways of thinking about how we create and consume art.

Applies research on how humans perceive, process and store information to the viewing and interpretation of art. The author argues that the clearest view of the mind comes from creating or experiencing art. The illustrations cover a range of examples but focus primarily on Western art.

"How Art Works explores puzzles that have preoccupied philosophers as well as the general public: Can art be defined? How do we decide what is good art? Why do we gravitate to sadness in art? Why do we devalue a perfect fake? Could 'my kid have done that'? Does reading fiction enhance empathy? Drawing on careful observations, probing interviews, and clever experiments, Ellen Winner reveals surprising answers to these and other artistic mysteries. We may come away with a new understanding of how art works on us."--Jacket.

Interpreting Visual Art explores the psychological and cognitive mechanisms that underlie one's interpretation of art. After the brain encodes visual information, this encoding is then processed by perceptual mechanisms to identify objects and depth in pictures. The brain incorporates many factors in order for people to "see" the art. Cognitive processes have a major role in how people interpret artworks because attention, memory, and language are also linked to the aesthetic experience. Catherine Weir and Evans Mandes first examine major attributes of aesthetic judgement - balance, symmetry, color, line, and shape - from an empirical point of view as opposed to more philosophical and speculative approaches. Then, they explore the perceptual process, paying special attention to art history in the Western world and emphasizing techniques from cave paintings to modern art. The role beauty and emotions play in our interpretations of pictures have been investigated from many approaches: evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and appraisal theory. Through the application of empirical research in cognitive science to master works from Botticelli to Pollock, readers are introduced to a research-oriented understanding of how art has been perceived, interpreted, and appreciated in the twenty-first century. This book will appeal to those interested in art as well as those teaching art history, psychology, and neuroscience.

Since its publication fifty years ago, this work has established itself as a classic. It casts the visual process in psychological terms and describes the creative way one's eye organizes visual material according to specific psychological premises. In 1974 this book was revised and expanded, and since then it has continued to burnish Rudolf Arnheim's reputation as a groundbreaking theoretician in the fields of art and psychology.