Gestalt psychology was the foundation of Rudolf Arnheim's approach to art. Reviewing Arnheim's long and productive career, it becomes useful to assess his relationship to the evolving theory. By paying special attention to the issues of (1) perceptual abstraction and visual thinking, (2) perceptual dynamics and expression, and (3) perceptual "goodness" and beauty, it can be seen the degree to which Arnheim actually altered the basis of the general theory of Gestalt psychology, affirming the centrality of art in its purview.
In an attempt to address major debates in perspective studies, this study brings perceptual research to bear on the problem of the status of perspective in the Renaissance. Between one school that sees perspective as mathematically rigorous but imperfectly applied and another that regards perspective as an incoherent discipline, this study argues that errors in the use of perspective are consistent and can be classified into two tendencies: first, the tendency to normalize a foreshortened form towards frontality and, second, the tendency to flatten a three-dimensional object to reveal its hidden sides. These tendencies find confirmation both in the Renaissance doctrine of the judgment of the eye (giudizio dell'occhio) as well as in Gestalt-oriented perceptual research. Numerous examples of their application are given with regard to the representation of human figures, architecture, and the relation of figures to space.
of black culture, the Elvis of our time (e.g., Rux). After an extraordinarily successful ten-year career, however, the rapper has certainly attained a comfortable perch in American musical culture. Yet he is the only one. We are faced, then, with a strange situation whereby a single white rapper has earned sustained credibility with the rap listening public. The fact that white rappers are accepted under very restricted conditions is what this paper seeks to explain.Critics have been too content to consider the situation from the angle of the effect of Eminem's music on white masses and the ways in which it might serve up black culture to them in a stereotyped, sugar-coated pill. This simplified reflection on Eminem in the abstract fails to address the conditions for the creation of his music and its consumption in a black context. The main argument I want to make is an institutional one, mainly that because of the structure of the music industry any white rapper will necessarily make different music from a black artist. White references, then, cannot be considered merely sure bets or signals to audiences that the white enactor of black culture really is white. The idea of a white rapper who simply blends into the genre is a romantic myth, and its failure to be realized (if not by Eminem then whom?) becomes a backdoor enforcement and reification of racial and cultural difference. In an ironic way, by being whiter Eminem acknowledges his racial alignment with the power structure of the music industry and can create a musical message more in sympathy with black interests.
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