Psychological Aesthetics
eBook - PDF

Psychological Aesthetics

Painting, Feeling and Making Sense

  1. 144 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Psychological Aesthetics

Painting, Feeling and Making Sense

About this book

An introduction to the field of psychological aesthetics for art educators, art therapists, psychoanalysts, artists and art lovers, this book re-evaluates conventional philosophical and psychoanalytic approaches to aesthetic qualities themselves, to the kinds of psychological significance they can generate, and to the interweaving of inner and outer realities upon which this depends.

Art history tends to see an artist's work in the context of their life and times; psychoanalysis and art therapy tend to see art works in terms of an `unconscious' meaning that is beneath the surface of its `aesthetic' properties, within the context of the therapeutic relationship. Maclagan draws attention to the intimate connections between the aesthetic qualities of an art work per se, felt out in its material handling, be they attractive, disconcerting or just bland, and a wide range of psychological meanings.

Drawing on phenomenology and archetypal psychology, as well as on neglected writers on unconcious aspects of form, Psychological Aesthetics: Painting, Feeling and Making Sense explores this realm of feeling, the different ways in which it is embodied in art and how we can use `subjective' strategies to articulate it in words. It will open new perspectives in understanding both the processes of art making and our creative response to its results.

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Yes, you can access Psychological Aesthetics by David Maclagan in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Psychology & History & Theory in Psychology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
ChapterĀ 
Two
TheĀ 
SplitĀ 
betweenĀ 
InnerĀ 
andĀ 
Outer
WorldsĀ 
andĀ 
theĀ 
ImpoverishmentĀ 
of
PsychologicalĀ 
Life
AĀ 
star
isĀ 
asĀ 
far
asĀ 
theĀ 
eye
canĀ 
see
and
asĀ 
near
asĀ 
myĀ 
eye
isĀ 
toĀ 
me
(GregoryĀ 
CorsoĀ 
1989,Ā 
p.182)
At
the
end
of
the
last
chapter
I
spoke
of
the
limitations
of
a
scientific
psychology
of
aesthetics.
One
problem
with
this
scientific
perspective
is
that
its
empirical
approach
privileges
those
features
of
aesthetic
response
that
can
be
most
readily
quantified,
and
other
more
qualitative
aspects
are
distorted
by
being
treated
ā€˜objectivelyā€™
or
else
effectively
disqualified.
Another,
more
fun-
damental,
difficulty
is
that
it
assumes
that
pictorial
features
ā€“
proportions,
lines,
colours
and
so
on
ā€“
are
simply
ā€˜out
thereā€™
in
the
work
of
art,
waiting
to
induce
their
effects,
which
can
then
be
measured.
Individual
psychological
responses
can
then
conveniently
be
treated
as
variables
in
relation
to
these
objective
formal
properties.
While
these
approaches
can
produce
interesting
findings
about
the
psycho-physiological
aspects
of
response
to
a
work
of
art,
the
common
ground
of
aesthetic
experience
that
they
establish
feels
thin,
dry
and
far
removed
from
what
most
of
us
would
recognise.
It
deals
only
with
the
outward
half
of
such
experiences,
leaving
their
ā€˜innerā€™
aspects
stranded
in
an
inaccessibleĀ 
realmĀ 
of
subjectivity.
33

Table of contents

  1. COVER
  2. Psychological Aesthetics: Painting, Feeling and Making Sense
  3. Contents
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. Introduction
  6. Chapter One: The Rise and Fall of the Aesthetic
  7. Chapter Two: The Split between Inner and Outer Worlds and the Impoverishment of Psychological Life
  8. Chapter Three: From Iconography to Embodiment
  9. Chapter Four: From Inarticulate to Aesthetic Form
  10. Chapter Five: Aesthetics, Beauty and Soul
  11. Chapter Six: Art Therapy and the Therapy of Art
  12. Chapter Seven: Towards a New Psychological Aesthetics
  13. Chapter Eight: Putting Aesthetic and Psychological Qualities into Words
  14. Conclusion
  15. References
  16. Subject Index
  17. Name Index