Arnheim Blurbs

I'm going to try something a little different... instead of writing a drawn out piece, I'm going to take sections of Arnheim's writing (from "Pictures, Symbols, and Signs") and respond, while asking readers questions at the same time. Hopefully it will make sense!

Arnheim writes about the nude woman being painted – how she exists “…at the realistic level of representation, as the muse, as the traditional allegory of truth, the fullness of life, all at the same time” (142). Arnheim notes how an image de-centers, while centering. It seems that, because images appear in whole, instead of a sequential order, that they truly do offer an existence that transcends the binary. This is ironic considering the fact the image is caught in the secondary position of a binary comprising verbal text and visual imagery.

Arnheim writes: “This creates a problem in a civilization which constantly throws things together that do not belong together or puts them in places contradictory to their function. All the mobility, transportation, transmission, and communication in our century removes things from their natural location and thereby interferes with their identification and efficiency” (143). This argument emphasizes the notion of truth – that things have a certain place where they belong. It is an interesting observation that present culture has a [postmodern] tendency to disrupt, which is seen as a positive move – one that breaks up established norms that may need/require change; however, because this interferes with identification, it also interferes with efficiency, which is, ironically, what the technocratic society seems to aim for.

Arnheim writes: “…there is always the risk of ideas coercing the life of the image” (148).

Now there’s a thought – that the image is not subservient to the idea. How does the image sustain life apart from the idea?

Arnheim writes: “Conceptual norm becomes poverty of imagination” (149). It appears that, with this statement, art should never enter into a “norm” for fear that it becomes incestual (to put it crudely). Yet, Arnheim stated earlier that problems arise in a civilization that tries to put seemingly unrelated things (concepts) together because then they cannot be identified. Identification begets norms and vice versa. Is it “wise” to deviate from the norm to avoid the “poverty of imagination”? Is the imagination something that is vulnerable to poverty? How so? Does a technocratic society argue for such deviations? Does a technocratic society imbue or hinder imagination?