From the Introduction: The papers collected in this book are based
on the assumption that art, as any other activity of the mind, is
subject to psychology, accessible to understanding, and needed for
any comprehensive survey of mental functioning. The author
believes, furthermore, that the science of psychology is not
limited to measurements under controlled laboratory conditions, but
must comprise all attempts to obtain generalizations by means of
facts as thoroughly established and concepts as well defined as the
investigated situation permits. Therefore the psychological
findings offered or referred to in these papers range all the way
from experiments in the perception of shape or observations on the
art work of children to broad deliberations on the nature of images
or of inspiration and contemplation. It is also assumed that every
area of general psychology calls for applications to art. The study
of perception applies to the effects of shape, color, movement, and
expression in the visual arts. Motivation raises the question of
what needs are fulfilled by the production and reception of art.
The psychology of the normal and the disturbed personality searches
the work of art for manifestations of individual attitudes. And
social psychology relates the artist and his contribution to his
fellow men. A systematic book on the psychology of art would have
to survey relevant work in all of these areas. My papers undertake
nothing of the kind. They are due to one man's outlook and
interest, and they report on whatever happened to occur to him.
They are presented together because they turn out to be concerned
with a limited number of common themes. Often, but unintentionally,
a hint in one paper is expanded to full exposition in another, and
different applications of one and the same concept are found in
different papers. I can only hope that the many overlappings will
act as unifying reinforcements rather than as repetitions. These
papers represent much of the output of the quarter of a century
during which I have been privileged to live, study, and teach in
the United States. To me, they are not so much the steps of a
development as the gradual spelling-out of a position. For this
reason, I have grouped them systematically, not chronologically.
For the same reason, I did not hesitate to change the words I wrote
years ago wherever I thought I could clarify their meaning. Removed
from my original intimacy with the content, I approached the text
as an unprepared reader, and when I stumbled, I tried to repair the
road. In some instances, I recast whole sections, not in order to
bring them up to date, but in the hope of saying better what I
meant at the time. Some of the earlier papers led to my book, Art
and Visual Perception, which was written in 1951 and first
published in 1954- Sections of the articles on perceptual
abstraction, on the Gestalt theory of expression, and on Henry
Moore are incorporated in that book. Others continued where the
book left off, for instance, the attempts to describe more
explicitly the symbolism conveyed by visual form. The short piece
on inspiration provided the substance for the introductory chapter
on creativity in my more recent book, Picasso's Guernica. Finally,
in rereading the material, I was surprised to find how many
passages point to what is shaping up as my next task, namely, a
presentation of visual thinking as the common and necessary way of
productive problem solving in any human activity. Ten of the papers
in this book were first published in the Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism. To mention this is to express my indebtedness to the
only scholarly periodical in the United States devoted to the
theory of art. In particular, Thomas Munro, its first editor,
showed a great trust in the contribution of psychology. He made me
feel at home among the philosophers, art historians, and literary
critics whose lively propositions inhabit the hostel he founded and
sustained. To him, as well as to my friends of the University of
California Press, who are now publishing my fourth book, I wish to
say that much of what I thought about in these years might not have
been cast into final writing, had it not been for their sympathy,
which encouraged the novice and keeps a critical eye on the more
self-assured pro. There are a few scientific papers here,
originally written for psychological journals but free, I hope, of
the terminological incrustation that would hide their meaning from
sight. There are essays for the educated friend of the arts. And
there are speeches, intended to suggest practical consequences for
art education, for the concerns of the artist, and for the function
of art in our time. These public lectures are hardly the products
of a missionary temperament. In fact, I marveled why anybody would
go to a theorist for counsel, illumination, and reassurance in
practical matters. However, when I responded to such requests I
noticed, bewildered and delighted, that some of my findings pointed
to tangible applications, which were taken to be useful.
General
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