Rudolf Arnheim Quotes

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Art Country Eyes Perception Science Understanding

All perceiving is also thinking, all reasoning is also intuition, all observation is also invention.

Rudolf Arnheim

Thinking, Perception, Intuition

Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye”, p.5, Univ of California Press

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Television is a new, hard test of our wisdom. If we succeed in mastering the new medium it will enrich us. But it can also put our mind to sleep. We must not forget that in the past the inability to transport immediate experience and to convey it to others made the use of language necessary and thus compelled the human mind to develop concepts. For in order to describe things one must draw the general from the specific; one must select, compare, think. When communication can be achieved by pointing with the finger, however, the mouth grows silent, the writing hand stops, and the mind shrinks.

Rudolf Arnheim

Communication, Sleep, Writing

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

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Once it is recognized that productive thinking in any area of cognition is perceptual thinking, the central function of art in general education will become evident.

Rudolf Arnheim

Art, Thinking, Cognition

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In a land of immigrants, one was not an alien but simply the latest arrival.

Rudolf Arnheim

Land, Aliens, Immigrants

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The arts are neglected because they are based on perception, and perception is disdained because it is not assumed to involve thought.

Rudolf Arnheim

Art, Perception, Neglected

Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Visual Thinking”, p.3, Univ of California Press

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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.

Rudolf Arnheim

Nuance, Details, Snapshots

Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye”, p.44, Univ of California Press

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The least touchable object in the world is the eye.

Rudolf Arnheim

Eye, World, Objects

Rudolf Arnheim (1990). “Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest”, p.13, 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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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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Every act is a visual judgement.

Rudolf Arnheim

Choices, Judgement, Visuals

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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.

Rudolf Arnheim

Strong, Eye, Fire

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As one gets older, it happens that in the morning one fails to remember the airplane trip to be taken in a few hours or the lecture scheduled for the afternoon.

Rudolf Arnheim

Good Morning, Travel, Taken

Rudolf Arnheim (1990). “Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest”, p.156, Univ of California Press

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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.

Rudolf Arnheim

Art, Eye, Self

Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye”, p.5, Univ of California Press

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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.

Rudolf Arnheim

Art, Shapes, Bears

Rudolf Arnheim (2004). “Visual Thinking”, p.300, Univ of California Press

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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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The ambition of instantaneous photography... was that of preserving the spontaneity of action and avoiding any indication that the presence of the picture taker had a modifying influence on what was going on.

Rudolf Arnheim

Photography, Ambition, Action

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The principle of parsimony is valid esthetically in that the artist must not go beyond what is needed for his purpose.

Rudolf Arnheim

Artist, Principles, Purpose

Rudolf Arnheim (1954). “Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye”, p.46, Univ of California Press

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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.

Rudolf Arnheim

Art, Dedication, Order

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Born: July 15, 1904
Died: June 9, 2007
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

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