Customer Reviews

Entropy and Art: Essay on Disorder and Order

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rudolf Arnheim, from the strange and deep 1970's decade, wrote a seminal and almost unnoticed classic about the relation between Entropy and Art. The book has different properties, depending on who is the reader: an artist, a semiotician, an "architectural morphologist". Arnheim exposes the more embarrassing question to the design methodology: the bare principles of an information theory related to the most qualitative matter, Art. It is an amazingly inspiring booklet, who will find (much) more readers along the Century.

I found this short book (or long essay) incredibly difficult to understand. Arnheim explores the relationship between entropy, or the tendency for things to deteriorate over time, and art. Exactly how he accomplishes this is beyond me, I'm embarrased to say. What I did get is that there is an irony, or inconsistency, at least, involving the fact that different camps swear by entropy, and others by it's opposite, i.e. the phenomena of things arranging themselves into order. So I think the fundamental questions are; is it one, or the other, or both? I leave it to sturdier minds to grapple with the contents of this book. Even the other reviewer's review is difficult to understand. I suppose I went in over my head. Good luck.