Gombrich on Art and Psychology

edited by Richard Woodfield

Nottingham Trent University
Manchester University Press
Manchester, U.K. and New York, NY
U.S.A., 1996. 271 pp. $69.95. ISBN: 0-7190-4769-2.

Reviewed by Istvan Hargittai

I am always amused when there is a company and X says something and Y tries to explain that what X really meant was this and this, and a heated discussion ensues about what X may have meant, while the somewhat bewildered X is looking over, being ignored completely. The discussion of Gombrich on art and psychology is not like that. All contributions had been submitted to Gombrich (b. 1908) and on two occasions Gombrich felt compelled to make comments which are duly printed following the relevant chapters. Referring to some detailed analysis of the extents of his belonging to the "Vienna School" of art history, Gombrich remarks, "I don't think it matters to what extent I belong to the Vienna school or any other school, of course all absorbed views and problems from our teachers, but my present interests lie on a very different plane, as any reader of my writings (and possibly of my future writings, if I live so long) will be able to judge."

It is truly fortunate that Gombrich could review the contributions and before the seemingly careful plot of the story of Gombrich's patricide of his "spiritual grandfather" Alois Riegel might be taking off (see the contribution "The Vienna School's hundred and sixty-eighth graduate: The Vienna School's ideas revised by E.H. Gombrich," by Jan Bakos, Institute of Art History, Slovak Academy of Sciences), Gombrich sets the record straight. He states that the fact that he knows the principal works of Riegel better than many of those who write about him does not mean that he is obsessed with Riegel.

Another tour de force of the book is that one of the 13 contributions is actually by Ernst Gombrich himself, titled "Four Theories of Artistic Expression."

To me the problems of visual perception are of special interest of Gombrich's teachings discussed in this volume (see, for example, the chapter "Form and its Symbolic Meaning" by Chang Hong Liu and John M. Kennedy, University of Toronto). This is also where modern science and technology may provide further raw material if not the answers to the questions in the study of the psychology of art. In the discussion of form and its symbolic meaning, the consensus shown by subjects playing Gombrich's game with circles and squares is examined. Current research employing magnetic resonance imagery (MRI) provides mapping of the responses of the human brain to the visual experience of circles and squares. Significant differences in brian laterality are observed, for example, in these responses by females and males. It appears also of interest to investigate the dependence of responses on the actual conditions of the mind at the time of the recordings. It is expensive research but an unexpected bonus may be the byproduct helping the analysis of visual perception and art appreciation. The first step should, of course, be to see whether there is any discernible correlation between the measurements and the psychologists' and art historians' findings. Whether or not there is a correlation, in either case the matter seems worth pursuing.

In another contribution, "Orders with Sense: Sense of Order and Classical Architecture" (by Joaquin Lorda, University of Navarra), the infinite symmetric patterns created in the kaleidoscope are characterized, in agreement with Gombrich, as at first fascinating and then soon becoming boring. This is contrasted by architectural design as capable of arousing (presumably permanent or, at least, long-lasting) interest and pleasure. The discussion then moves on to the snow crystals, likening them to the patterns in the kaleidoscope rather than to the architectural marvels. Lorda even illustrates the snow crystals with a drawing which, very much to the point, looks like, and is, an ornament. "A game of this kind," Lorda laments, "does not have human rules; our sense of order can read little in this redundant glacial geometry; the sense of meaning becomes paralysed: there is nothing here to understand."

Before I would comment on this description of the snowflakes, I would like to introduce two quotations related to snowflakes and architecture. Thomas Mann is giving a most eloquent description of the beauty and symmetry of the snowflakes in The Magic Mountain, ". . . the exquisite precision of form displayed by these little jewels, insignia, orders, agraffes---no jeweler, however skilled, could do finer, more minute work. . . Yet each in itself---this was the uncanny, the anti-organic, the life-denying character of them all---each of them was absolutely symmetrical; icily regular in form. They were too regular, as substance adapted to life never was to this degree---the living principle shuddered at this perfect precision, found it deathly, the very marrow of death---Hans Castorp felt he understood now the reason why the builders of antiquity purposely and secretly introduced minute variation from absolute symmetry in their columnar structures." The last sentence is very telling about the potentials of beautiful and perfect architecture becoming boring and lifeless.

With it a much earlier Japanese statement resonates exceedingly well. The following quotation is from Essays in Idleness, a translation of Tsurezuregusa by Kenko Yoshida (1924-1931) (quoted here after D. Keene, 1981, C.E. Tuttle, Tokyo), "In everything . . . uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room from growth. . . . Even when building the imperial palace, they always leave one place unfinished."

I have two comments. One is that architecture may acquire all the good and negative features of the kaleidoscope if we are not watching out and avoiding the traps of perfect and virtually endless repetition and other features of geometrical symmetry. The other is that, at closer inspection, snowflakes have not only tremendous variety in their general shapes -- this has been noted by many -- but at close enough inspection, there are minute variations in the six directions of even the seemingly most perfect snowflake. These tiny variations diminish nothing in their beauty and symmetry but may suffice for the interested eye to enhance their intriguing intricacy of the execution of design. Then, depending on the background of the observer, the association of the external shape with its origin in the internal arrangement of the water molecules, all interconnected by the fragile yet rigorously distributed hydrogen bonds, may be the source of further marvel and contemplation -- anything but boring.

In taking issue with Mann and Lorda, or, for that matter, with Gombrich, I am suggesting that the patterns of the kaleidoscope and patterns in architecture have potentially more in common with each other than snowflake designs have with either, unless the snowflake design comes from a master drawing or the computer rather than from nature. In the symmetries involved I am suggesting to delineate geometrical symmetry, which is rigorous, and "material" symmetry (using the term suggested by the Russian crystallographer and symmetrologist, A.V. Shubnikov), which allows imperfections. The strict symmetry concept in the geometrical sense restricts its utilization to giving "yes" and "no" answers only, whereas there is a wide range for symmetries if we follow Hermann Weyl, and, indeed, the ancient Greeks, in relaxing the meaning of the term and extending it to include harmony and proportion.

Returning to what Joaquín Lorda has to say about snowflakes, he concludes with an important caveat: "were the forms [of snowflakes] sketched in greater detail they might become more interesting." This is an important warning about the significance of scale and resolution that plays a decisive role in our perception of various forms. This is but an example of how thought-provoking Joaquín Lorda's chapter, this whole volume and, ultimately, the teachings of Ernst Gombrich are.

top