Le
arti e la psicologia
by Lucia Pizzo Russo
Il Castoro, Milano, 2004
221 pp., illus. 3 b/w. Trade, € 16.50
ISBN: 88-8033-300-3.
Reviewed by Ian Verstegen
University of Georgia Studies Abroad,
Italy
iversteg@uga.edu
Lucia Pizzo
Russos new book is dedicated to
Rudolf Arnheim on his one hundredth birthday
and his spirit everywhere pervades it.
The book, however, is not so much an exposition
of Arnheimian theory as a deep reflection
on the relation between art and psychology.
It is composed of five chapters, on theoretical
issues, mental images and color. Chapters
One,Two and Five form a natural group
as a powerful meta-theoretical reflection
on the relation of art and psychology.
Pizzo Russos book would seem to
appear at a time when the psychology of
art is receiving new interest, in works
by brain researchers like Margaret Livingstone,
V. S. Ramachandran and Semir Zeki. However,
Pizzo Russo rains on this parade when
one of the first things she asks is whether
a psychology of art can even be said to
exist. Even granting the subject exists
in a theoretical sense, institutionally
it is marked by a very precarious existence.
Who after all is a true psychologist of
art? Arnheim, certainly. But who else?
Or more importantly how does a researcher
consider art? What is its relation to
general psychology?
Pizzo Russo is worried more about the
way the psychology of art is treated when
taken up rather than its marginal status
in general. The way that the discipline
of psychology does not mobilize its worthiest
and most central principles does not bode
well. For example, one of the few strong
research programs in the psychology of
art, the psychobiology of Dan Berlyne,
bases itself on hedonics, that is, non-cognitive
principles.
Following a not uncommon Italian belief
that American cognitive science carries
on many scientific ideas of the Behaviorism
it is almost universally considered to
have replaced, Pizzo Russo reflects on
the impossibility of understanding art
through a science that seeks to model
thinking on a computers functioning
and takes its explananda from theories
of scientific thinking. Pizzo Russo stops
to marvel that the hero of cognitivism
is still David Marr, who never sought
to understand human vision directly but
to develop machine vision.
In an enlightening discussion, Pizzo Russo
discusses the works of Howard Gardner
and points out the way in which his thinking
frustrates the placement of artistic thought
in any mainstream context. Gardner, who
posited the existence of numerous intelligences,
effectively created a barrier of commonality
between scientific and artistic intelligence.
The way that a basic notion of intelligence
is translated through various mediapreserving
a common definition of intelligence while
at the same time respecting the difference
of its manifestationis
instead captured in Arnheims idea
of representational development.
This preserves general notions of intelligence
which only find a particular manifestation
in artistic products. Ironically, a psychology
of art turns out to be an eminently general
psychology of cognition.
Pizzo Russos reflections on mental
imagery (ch. three) are equally negative,
noting as they do the Phyrric victory
of the imagists against the symbolists.
According to Pizzo Russo, for example,
Philip Johnson-Laird insists so vehemently
that his mental models are not visual
that the possibility of a final overcoming
of symbolism is impossible. The chapter
on color stands quite well alone and treats
several issues facing those interested
in art and psychology. This book is the
fruit of many years working at the intersection
of art and science. Working in the Italian
tradition, Pizzo Russo does not have to
worry about the American feel-good narrative
of the Minds New Science of
cognitivism. If we have learned so much
about the mind, why is our understanding
of art so poor? The ideology of mainstream
psychological science accords Arnheim
a respected position, but in the past.
Perhaps if cognitivism is a true science,
we will have to remember with Newton that
a science is built on the shoulders of
giants.