Arnheim, Gestalt and Art

The author is a professional art historian but began his career at the University of Michigan where he met Rudolf Arnheim. Subsequently he studied experimental psychology with Alain Gilchrist and then devoted himself to art history. Never losing his interest in psychology, he has cultiavated relationships with European psychologists whose works provide much of the impetus of this book. He has gone on to write several professional papers on the thinking of Arnheim, gestalt psychology, not to mention works on Rennaissance and Baroque painting and perspective theory, including editing a book on the art patronage of the Della Rovere Family, The Della Rovere: The Creation and Maintenance of a Noble Identity.

• Why Arnheim? Why Gestalt?.- Arnheim and Different Approaches to the Psychology of Art.- Expression, Symbolism and Visual Thinking.- The Senses, Perceptual Objects and Their Dynamics.- The Notorious Gestalt Brain Model.- The Dynamics of Pictorial, Sculptural and Architectural Form.- The Dynamics of Pantomimic Form.- The Dynamics of Musical Form.- The Dynamics of Poetic Form.- Art in Comparative Perspective: Children, Adults, Cultures.- The Dynamics of Microgenetic Artistic Development.- Individual Artistic Development.- The Dynamics of Differential and Psychopathological Artistic Form.- The Dynamics of Cultural-Perceptual Artistic Form.- Objective Percepts, Objective Values.- Conclusion.