Rudolf Arnheim Quotes - Page 2

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• A good documentary or educational film is not raw experience. The material has passed the mill of reason, it has been sifted and interpreted.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Educational, Documentaries, Film

  Rudolf Arnheim (1957). “Film as Art”, p.195, Univ of California Press

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• Now equilibrium is the very opposite of disorder.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Opposites, Disorder, Equilibrium

  Rudolf Arnheim (1974). “Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order”, p.25, Univ of California Press

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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.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Art, Class, Smell

  Rudolf Arnheim (1990). “Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest”, p.163, Univ of California Press

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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.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Men, Order, Levels

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• At one of the annual conventions of the American Society for Aesthetics much confusion arose when the Society for Anesthetics met at the same time in the same hotel.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Confusion, Hospitality, Mets

  Rudolf Arnheim (1990). “Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest”, p.39, Univ of California Press

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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.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Intelligent, What Matters, Differences

  Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Visual Thinking”, p.73, Univ of California Press

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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.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Strong, Humility, Eye

  Rudolf Arnheim (1990). “Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest”, p.160, Univ of California Press

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• A cloud can look like a camel, but a camel is unlikely to look like a cloud. This is so because the signifier must be able to stand for the whole category of the signified. The cloud looks like all camels, but no camel looks like all clouds.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Clouds, Able, Camels

  Rudolf Arnheim (1990). “Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest”, p.245, Univ of California Press

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• It is good to live in a country where all are immigrants ... the newcomer is simply the latest arrival.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Country, Newcomers, Immigrants

  Rudolf Arnheim (1990). “Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest”, p.165, Univ of California Press

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• Good art theory must smell of the studio, although its language should differ from the household talk of painters and sculptors.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Art, Smell, Language

  Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye”, p.4, Univ of California Press

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• Variety is more than a means of avoiding boredom, since art is more than an entertainment of the senses.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Art, Mean, Blessing

  Rudolf Arnheim (1974). “Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order”, p.55, Univ of California Press

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• Since mechanically obtained randomness contains all kinds of possible permutations, including the most regular ones, it cannot be relied upon always to exhibit a pervasive irregularity.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Kind, Randomness, Irregularity

  Rudolf Arnheim (1974). “Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order”, p.24, Univ of California Press

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• The rehabilitation of order as a universal principle, however, suggested at the same time that orderliness by itself is not sufficient to account for the nature of organized systems in general or for those created by man in particular.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Men, Order, Principles

  Rudolf Arnheim (1974). “Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order”, p.48, Univ of California Press

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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.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Airplane, Light, Climbing

  Rudolf Arnheim (2009). “The Dynamics of Architectural Form”, p.33, Univ of California Press

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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.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Dance, Art, Fall

  Rudolf Arnheim (1966). “Toward a Psychology of Art: Collected Essays”, p.261, Univ of California Press

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• The fundamental peculiarity of the photographic medium; the physical objects themselves print their image by means of the optical and chemical action of light.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Mean, Light, Fundamentals

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• Entropy theory is indeed a first attempt to deal with global form; but it has not been dealing with structure. All it says is that a large sum of elements may have properties not found in a smaller sample of them.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Science, Elements, May

  Rudolf Arnheim (1974). “Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order”, p.21, Univ of California Press

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• Form is sometimes considered a mere spice added by the artist to the representation of objects in order to make it pleasurable.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Artist, Order, Spices

  Rudolf Arnheim (1966). “Toward a Psychology of Art: Collected Essays”, p.40, Univ of California Press

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• Seeing consists of the grasping of structural features rather than the indiscriminate recording of detail.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Details, Statistics, Grasping

  Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Visual Thinking”, p.68, Univ of California Press

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• Entropy theory, on the other hand, is not concerned with the probability of succession in a series of items but with the overall distribution of kinds of items in a given arrangement.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Science, Hands, Probability Theory

  Rudolf Arnheim (1974). “Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order”, p.19, Univ of California Press

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• The experienced physician, mechanic, or physiologist looking at a wound, an engine, a microscopic preparation, "sees" things the novice does not see. If both, experts and laymen, were asked to make exact copies of what they see, their drawings would be quite different.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Drawing, Preparation, Novices

  Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Visual Thinking”, p.302, Univ of California Press

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• A system is in equilibrium when the forces constituting it are arranged in such a way as to compensate each other, like the two weights pulling at the arms of a pair of scales.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Two, Weight, Arms

  Rudolf Arnheim (1974). “Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order”, p.25, Univ of California Press

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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.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Art, Dark, Men

  Rudolf Arnheim (1974). “Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order”, p.56, Univ of California Press

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• The foreign accent was a promise, and indeed, all over the country, European imports added spice to the sciences, the arts, and other areas. What one had to give was not considered inferior to what one received.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Country, Art, Giving

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• Order is a necessary condition for making a structure function. A physical mechanism, be it a team of laborers, the body of an animal, or a machine, can work only if it is in physical order.

  Rudolf Arnheim

  Team, Animal, Order

  Rudolf Arnheim (1974). “Entropy and Art: An Essay on Disorder and Order”, p.3, Univ of California Press

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