"Art and Visual Perception" Arnheim, R. : Introduction summary

Key points & quotes 

• "Good art theory must smell of the studio, although its language should differ from the household talk of printers and sculptors" (pg.4)
• Vision is "the apprehension of significant structural patterns", meaning "that images of reality can be valid though far removed from 'realistic' semblance" (pg.6)
• "this survey of formal mechanisms aims not to replace spontaneous intuition but to sharpen it" (pg.8)

Looking at images as a whole (relating to Gestalt theory)

• "At no time could a work of art have been made or understood by a mind unable to conceive the integrated structure of a whole" (pg.5)
• "The appearance of any element depends on its place and function in an overall pattern" (pg.5)
• "Before we identify any one element, the total composition makes a statement that we must not lose" (pg.8)

Objectivity in looking at art

• Good art must have "a common core of truth", "potentially relevant to all men"
• Vision is an "interplay between properties supplied by the object and the nature of the observing subject" (What it is were looking at and How we see it). 
• This allows us to "distinguish between adequate conceptions and inadequate conceptions of reality"
• a "line figure imposes itself upon all observers as basically the same shape, regardless...of their cultural background or individual disposition"