Ian Verstegen – författare

Perception of expression distinguishes our cognitive activity in a pervasive, significant and peculiar way, and manifests itself paradigmatically in the vast world of artistic production.

Art and Expression examines the cognitive processes involved in artistic production, aesthetic reception, understanding and enjoyment. Using a phenomenological theoretical and methodological framework, developed by Rudolf Arnheim and other important scholars interested in expressive media, Alberto Argenton considers a wide range of artistic works, which span the whole arc of the history of western graphic and pictorial art. Argenton analyses the representational strategies of a dynamic and expressive character that can be reduced to basic aspects of perception, like obliqueness, amodal completion, and the bilateral function of contour, giving new directions relative to the functioning of cognitive activity.

Art and Expression is a monument to the fruitful collaboration of art history and psychology, and Argenton has taken great care to construct a meaningful psychological approach to the arts based also on a knowledge of pictorial genres that allows him to systematically situate the works under scrutiny. Art and Expression is an essential resource for postgraduate researchers and scholars interested in visual perception, art, and gestalt psychology.

Perception of expression distinguishes our cognitive activity in a pervasive, significant and peculiar way, and manifests itself paradigmatically in the vast world of artistic production.

Art and Expression examines the cognitive processes involved in artistic production, aesthetic reception, understanding and enjoyment. Using a phenomenological theoretical and methodological framework, developed by Rudolf Arnheim and other important scholars interested in expressive media, Alberto Argenton considers a wide range of artistic works, which span the whole arc of the history of western graphic and pictorial art. Argenton analyses the representational strategies of a dynamic and expressive character that can be reduced to basic aspects of perception, like obliqueness, amodal completion, and the bilateral function of contour, giving new directions relative to the functioning of cognitive activity.

Art and Expression is a monument to the fruitful collaboration of art history and psychology, and Argenton has taken great care to construct a meaningful psychological approach to the arts based also on a knowledge of pictorial genres that allows him to systematically situate the works under scrutiny. Art and Expression is an essential resource for postgraduate researchers and scholars interested in visual perception, art, and gestalt psychology.

As the theoretical alignments within academia shift, this book introduces a surprising variety of realism to abolish the old positivist-theory dichotomy that has haunted Art History. Demanding frankly the referential detachment of the objects under study, the book proposes a stratified, multi-causal account of art history that addresses postmodern concerns while saving it from its errors of self-refutation. Building from the very basic distinction between intransitive being and transitive knowing, objects can be affirmed as real while our knowledge of them is held to be fallible. Several focused chapters address basic problems while introducing philosophical reflection into art history. These include basic ontological distinctions between society and culture, general and “special” history, the discontinuity of cultural objects, the importance of definition for special history, scales, facets and fiat objects as forms of historical structure, the nature of evidence and proof, historical truth and controversies. Stressing Critical Realism as the stratified, multi-causal approach needed for productive research today in the academy, this book creates the subject of the ontology of art history and sets aside a theoretical space for metaphysical reflection, thus clarifying the usually muddy distinction between theory, methodology, and historiography in art history.

As the theoretical alignments within academia shift, this book introduces a surprising variety of realism to abolish the old positivist-theory dichotomy that has haunted Art History. Demanding frankly the referential detachment of the objects under study, the book proposes a stratified, multi-causal account of art history that addresses postmodern concerns while saving it from its errors of self-refutation. Building from the very basic distinction between intransitive being and transitive knowing, objects can be affirmed as real while our knowledge of them is held to be fallible. Several focused chapters address basic problems while introducing philosophical reflection into art history. These include basic ontological distinctions between society and culture, general and “special” history, the discontinuity of cultural objects, the importance of definition for special history, scales, facets and fiat objects as forms of historical structure, the nature of evidence and proof, historical truth and controversies. Stressing Critical Realism as the stratified, multi-causal approach needed for productive research today in the academy, this book creates the subject of the ontology of art history and sets aside a theoretical space for metaphysical reflection, thus clarifying the usually muddy distinction between theory, methodology, and historiography in art history.

This book is an account of the theory and practice of practitioners of the so-called "second" or "younger" Viennese school associated with Hans Sedlmayr and Otto Pächt and their short-lived journal, Kunstwissenschaftliche Forschungen. It demonstrates the strong dependence of these writers on the work of Gestalt psychology which was emerging at the time. Gestalt theory emerges as the master key to interpreting Sedlmayr and Pächt’s ideas about art and history and how it affected their practices.

This fresh interpretive apparatus casts light on the power and originality of Sedlmayr’s and Pächt’s theoretical and empirical writings, revealing a practice-based approach to history that is more attuned to the visuality of art.

Verstegen demonstrates the existence of a genealogy of Vienna formalism coursing throughout most of the twentieth century, encompassing Johannes Wilde and his students at the Courtauld as well as Otto Demus in Byzantine studies. By bringing Gestalt theory to the surface, he dispels misunderstandings about the Vienna School theory and attains a deeper understanding of the promise that a Gestalt analytic holism – a non-intuitionist account of the relational logic of sense – is offered.

The essays in Space, Image, and Reform in Early Modern Art build on Marcia Hall’s seminal contributions in several categories crucial for Renaissance studies, especially the spatiality of the church interior, the altarpiece’s facture and affectivity, the notion of artistic style, and the controversy over images in the era of Counter Reform. Accruing the advantage of critical engagement with a single paradigm, this volume better assesses its applicability and range. The book works cumulatively to provide blocks of theoretical and empirical research on issues spanning the function and role of images in their contexts over two centuries. Relating Hall’s investigations of Renaissance art to new fields, Space, Image, and Reform expands the ideas at the center of her work further back in time, further afield, and deeper into familiar topics, thus achieving a cohesion not usually seen in edited volumes honoring a single scholar.

The essays in Space, Image, and Reform in Early Modern Art build on Marcia Hall’s seminal contributions in several categories crucial for Renaissance studies, especially the spatiality of the church interior, the altarpiece’s facture and affectivity, the notion of artistic style, and the controversy over images in the era of Counter Reform. Accruing the advantage of critical engagement with a single paradigm, this volume better assesses its applicability and range. The book works cumulatively to provide blocks of theoretical and empirical research on issues spanning the function and role of images in their contexts over two centuries. Relating Hall’s investigations of Renaissance art to new fields, Space, Image, and Reform expands the ideas at the center of her work further back in time, further afield, and deeper into familiar topics, thus achieving a cohesion not usually seen in edited volumes honoring a single scholar.

Arnheim, Gestalt and Art is the first book-length discussion of the powerful thinking of the psychologist of art, Rudolf Arnheim. Written as a complete overview of Arnheim’s thinking, it covers fundamental issues of the importance of psychological discussion of the arts, the status of gestalt psychology, the various sense modalities and media, and developmental issues. By proceeding in a direction from general to specific and then proceeding through dynamic processes as they unfold in time (creativity, development, etc.), the book discovers an unappreciated unity to Arnheim’s thinking. Not content to simply summarize Arnheim’s theory, however, Arnheim, Art, and Gestalt goes on to enrich (and occasionally question) Arnheim’s findings with the contemporary results of gestalt-theoretical research from around the world, but especially in Italy and Germany. The result is a workable overview of the psychology of art with bridges built to contemporary research, making Arnheim’s approach living and sustainable.