Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye

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Summary: Not an easy read, but extremely valuable
Review: Although the book isn't quite the easiest to read, the information within is crucial for photographers and painters.

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Summary: This text is quite comprehensive.
Review: As a beginning painter I have found this book quite useful.

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Summary: Arte y Percepción Visual
Review: Este es un libro de cabecera para los que de quieran dedicar a las artes visuales, desde los arquitectos hasta los pintores pasando por los diseñadores. Arnheim es uno de los pilares de la Bauhaus que permitieron que los conocimientos artisticos se establecieran científicamente. Se basa en los conceptos de la Gestalt para aprender los distintos fenomenos de la percepción.

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Summary: Arte y Percepción Visual
Review: Este es un libro de cabecera para los que de quieran dedicar a las artes visuales, desde los arquitectos hasta los pintores pasando por los diseñadores. Arnheim es uno de los pilares de la Bauhaus que permitieron que los conocimientos artisticos se establecieran científicamente. Se basa en los conceptos de la Gestalt para aprender los distintos fenomenos de la percepción.

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Summary: the true gateway to perception
Review: If you want to learn why the things are seen in the way they are seen or want to control the look of your objects to build up as a concrete whole, wheter in a motion picture, a paint, a photograph, architecture, sculpture, a graphical design piece, or more strictly speaking, if you ever asked yourself what is a line, what makes a triangle more interesting than a square, why my piece of design looks unstable, and start to think that you are going mad :) this is the decisive beginning for understanding visual communication... Must be bought together with "The Power of the Center" for a complete look... Basics of geometry, psychology, philosophy and history of art are required...

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Summary: Science meets art in Gestalt theory
Review: Rudolf Arnheim is one of those rare and exceptional thinkers gifted in both the arts and science, in this case the science of psychology. This book is about the relation between psychology and art. Its value will be immediately recognized by artists, as well as by those who are interested in how the mind makes sense of the visual world. But the most interesting and valuable aspect of this book is its implications for psychology. The Gestalt theory on which Arnheim's approach is based is a minority view in contemporary psychology, but it is a theoretical viewpoint that is destined for a renaissance. For Gestalt theory recognizes the holistic, emergent aspects of perception, which are so difficult to account for in terms of contemporary neuroscience, but are so clearly evident in the laws of artistic composition. Although this book was originally published in 1954, I believe it is only a matter of time before it receives the recognition it deserves as an invaluable contribution to psychology, as soon as psychology has the wisdom to recognize it as such.