Visual Thinking (Paperback)

by Rudolf Arnheim (Author) "Reasoning, says Schopenhauer, is of feminine nature: it can give only after it has received..." (more)
Key Phrases: perceptual abstraction, container concepts, perceptual thinking, Holy Ghost, Jean Piaget, Paul Klee (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
For thirty-five years Visual Thinking has been the gold standard for art educators, psychologists, and general readers alike. In this seminal work, Arnheim, author of The Dynamics of Architectural Form, Film as Art, Toward a Psychology of Art, and Art and Visual Perception, asserts that all thinking (not just thinking related to art) is basically perceptual in nature, and that the ancient dichotomy between seeing and thinking, between perceiving and reasoning, is false and misleading. An indis-pensable tool for students and for those interested in the arts. Illustrations: 2 color illustrations, 12 b/w photographs, 68 line illustrations --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap
"Groundbreaking when first published in 1969, this book is now of even greater relevance to make the reader aware of the need to educate the visual sense, a matter so harmfully neglected in the present system."--Peter Selz, author of Nathan Oliveira

"Freud argued that a cogent thought process, to say nothing of conscious intellectual work, could not exist amidst the unruliness of visual experience. Over the last half century in a sequence of landmark books, Rudolf Arnheim has not only shown us how wrong that is, he has parsed the grammar of form with uncanny acuity and taught us how to read it. Few books continue to speak to the generations after them; Visual Thinking is one of those rare exceptions."--Jonathan Fineberg, author of Art Since 1940 --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 345 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (September 1, 1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520018710
• ISBN-13: 978-0520018716
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #600,248 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Book you want to have at home, March 18, 2005

By	Reader "M.P." - See all my reviews

The above phrase is the conclusion I came to after reading this book at the library. I am not in art education, but there are many things I wanted to underline and think about in application to the theory of creativity, use of technology in education, visual literacy. I think different people would find different things to think about in this book. Arnheim wrote a masterpiece that catalyzed a paradigm shift in his area (just like Freud or Simon & Newell).
The book is written pretty clear, I would not say it is difficult to read (English is my third language).

21 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not easy to read, April 10, 2002

By	antoine martin "antoinemartin2" (austin, tx United States) - See all my reviews

The book is fairly complex, and definitely needs reflexion for every sentence. The author explains some psychological and philosophical theories. This is personally not what I expected. I would have liked more examples and applications.

54 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable., August 23, 1998

By A Customer

Arnheim always sheds some new light on his subjects, and this book might be his most enlightening. Whether you care about art, education, perception, or simply living a full human life, this book will make you think about the subject in a new way. Grounded in careful analysis of specific objects and experiences, Arnheim nonetheless manages to convey the importance of his ideas to the wider subject of human consciousness.