The opportunistic teacher who embraces the leisure interests of his pupils in the hope of leading them to higher things is as frequently unsympathetic to the really valuable qualities of popular culture as his colleague who remains resolutely hostile. A true training in discrimination is concerned with pleasure.
"...artistic activity is a form of reasoning..."
"...artistic activity is a form of reasoning..."
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Renee Hobbs
Arnhem offered a large lecture course in visual thinking (art and perception) when I was a undergraduate at the University of Michigan and I remember loving his many ideas about gestalt, figure-ground and the psychology of color. But it was the book, Film as Art that really floored me when I was first trying to understand the early history of film in relation to media literacy. While at Harvard, I learned that Arnheim was following in the footsteps of Hugo Munsterberg, whose 1908 book, The Photoplay, explored the psychology and pleasures and aesthetics of film viewing. How fascinating that these German intellectuals helped us see the powerful interplay and depth embedded in the relationship between artist and interpreter.
Jennifer Swift-Kramer
Having found media studies after formal training in fine art, I was often at a loss to make myself understood in the humanities. My only "translator" was Rudolf Arnheim. Cinema Studies 101 assigned Film As Art, but my favorite book of his was the comparatively new Visual Thinking. As his preface put it, "artistic activity is a form of reasoning, in which perceiving and thinking are indivisibly intertwined," a definition I understood to apply as much to consumers as creators, in physical and electronic media alike. Years later, I opened an issue of Leonardo and found a letter to the editor from him, complete with a home address! I contacted him about my academic homelessness and he was kind enough to reply. Unfortunately he admitted being out of the loop for long enough that he couldn't give me much advice, but he did invite me to lunch. I was afraid we'd have nothing to say, so I didn't take him up on his offer. (Meeting Robin Wood for the first time only to discover he was burnt out and trying to write a novel in San Francisco was one of the most depressing non-conversations I've ever had.) However, I'll always have a piece of his homemade stationery - personalized with his initials in red felt tip!