SLC ‘Psychology and Art’ legend Arnheim remembered

by Frederic Richter '10

Tuesday April 8, 2008

Rudolf Arnheim, was a “legendary” faculty member of the Psychology department from 1943 to 1968. Truly a trailblazer in his field, he published nine highly acclaimed and original books many of which broke the previously constricting strictures of disciplinary segmentation. Arnheim, died at the age of 102, and on March 11th a symposium was held at the Donnelly Lecture Hall about the field that many would say he founded, Psychology and Art.

The discussion was moderated by Professor Joe Forte (Art History), who opened by noting that it was his years at SLC when he had many of his most ingenuous theories and teachings. After leaving here taught at Harvard, and for a time was a visiting Professor at the University of Michigan.

The interdisciplinary nature of the speakers spoke volumes about the effect of his theory itself, as was elaborated by Malcolm Turvey (Film History), “Science has been viewed with skepticism by those in the humanities. This meant artistic disciplines have not had as much effect on science as they should have.”

Turvey discussed the way Arnheim viewed film, and the influence his various theories had upon it, noting that his book, first published in 1932, became very famous in the 40’s. Some argue that one impact Arnheim had was he allowed for people to realize that film was art on a par with painting. As Turvey explained prior to Arnheim many felt that photography and film were merely a mechanical form, not art, yet Arnheim had several reasons for seeing divergences in this notion and argued that the frame of the shot restricts what we see, among other theories. Another crucial aspect of his conception of film as art was that film to Arnheim was interpretive, and that for a film to be considered art, it must “interpret” as well as merely record. It was this crucial hypothesis, his theory of “visual reception”, which explains his views of art. Turvey had some issues with them, though he did not expand on most them, aside from that his definition rules out realism and there can be an ambiguity of “what Arnheim describes as creativity”. He pointed out that to this day Arnheim’s books, many written long ago are still used in psychology, art and film classes at this and other academic institutions.

Professor Charlotte Doyle (Psychology) gave us a brief history of his life, prior to reaching SLC, noting that his most famous and critical of his works were done while at SLC. He studied with Max Wertheimer, the iconoclastic psychologist from Germany at the sunset of the liberal Weimar regime. With Arnheim he pioneered a new field of study known as Gestalt, Doyle attempted to explain this to the audience by using a series of slides, which illustrated the Gestalt theory of “visual perception”. Following the rise of Nazism many German Jewish psychologists, amongst whom were the founders of Gestalt, fled their native country for the U.S., where most had difficulty finding positions. Doyle explained a large reason for this was that the psychologists in the U.S. tended to rely more heavily on behavioral than Gestalt psychology. During this time Arnheim went from Italy to NYC, and wrote a rather humorous article, which compared Hitler’s mustache to Charlie Chaplin’s, which surely did not amuse the Fuher. When he reached NYC, he began teaching at the New School and then received Guggenheim Fellowship. Like many of the recently emigrated German psychologists, (a number of whom came to SLC) he remained skeptical of behavioral psychology. Professor Doyle closed her remarks by noting she was proud to teach at the same school as Arnheim.

Professor Elizabeth Johnston (Psychology), noted that she “got to know him in the 60’s” and proceeded to explain the multifarious theories of art. She knew the personal side of Arnheim as well, calling him a “warm gentleman” and “an artist himself” who designed his own beach house. She proceeded to explain how this connection with the artist allowed Arnheim to meticulously study the work of Pablo Picasso, examining his sketches, drafts and outlines for his famous work Guernica, which she showed on the screen. Following Professor Johnston’s lecture Joseph Forte returned to discuss the connection between Arnheim’s theories and art history. The event was well attended and it seemed to all involved a poignant tribute to a man whose work was his life and whose life touched so many outside the confines of his intellectual disciplines and challenged conceptions.