A Hierarchical Theory of Aesthetic Perception: Scales in the Visual Arts

A new language is proposed to speak of visual form in terms of directional ensembles, which are posited as akin to musical scales. A correspondence is established between musical intonations and plane curves, and plane figures are found to be the analogues of chords. The author presents his general theory of aesthetic perception, originally developed to describe hierarchical scaling in music. This theory is intended to predict all possible directional scales and provide detailed characteristics of their expressive potentials. The theory might find application in painting, sculpture, architecture, ballet and other arts where visual form has an intonational logic. Some aspects of the use of color and size in painting are also discussed.