Psychology of the Arts by Hans Kreitler, Shulamith Kreitler (review)

368 Books of non-Euclidean geometry, Russell’s logic, Freudian and certain pre-Freudian psychology and, later, the sociology of Mannheim. Each with its penumbra of social implication , its light and dark side, its liberating elan, its unholy liasons with pessimism and alienation. In the course of drawing these together we are given not only some powerful conventional criticism but also, more remarkably, a series of polished excursions into such topics as Riemannian geometry, the Hilbert-Brower controversy over the foundations of mathematics, Russell’s theory of types and the Einsteinian space-time view of the world. Later the scene changes to Mannheim and ‘The Moral Community of Technological Idealism’, which leads to a penetrating enquiry into Expressionism in relation to the Bauhaus, on the one hand, and Nazism, on the other, and the disconcerting component common to all three. These last sections and the rather fragmentary epilogue seem at once the most interesting and the least secure. Although Richardson wisely refrains from prophecy, one might have hoped here for a more stringent following through of modern art and sciencefrom their heroic period, through consolidation and introspection into the present era of uncertainty. For here, too, some of the parallels seem no less persuasive or significant. The rarity of truly seminal breakthroughs, internationalism and the loss of individuality in teams and movements, commercialism and fashion seem not merely to enter into both but to do so with a shared inevitability. But, with serious criticism at the science-art interface as rare as it is, we would do well to feel thankful for the quality of what the author has chosen to offer. The book is, above all, enjoyable, the writing is spare and accurate throughout and the University of Illinois Press has done a beautiful job of design and illustration. Unlike some critics in search of a wider vision, Richardson is not only impressively at ease talking about science but also has a sure sense of relevance. His dismissive exclusion, for example, of such ‘obvious’ relevant points as Italian Futurism and C. P. Snow’s musing on the English education system are made to seem entirely justified. Viewing the work as a whole, I would have wished to have some further evidence for the author’s preliminary contention that ‘ ...any direct historical parallels between scientific thought and painting ...fall between the centers of the (19th and 20th) centuries’. In a similar spirit, I have the urgent reservation that no conclusion reached through his particular ‘direct’ type of historico-stylistic study should be held to vitiate a deeper enquiry into unity, drawing perhaps upon the philosophy of expression or some of the more elusive currents in the history of ideas. The fact that the greatest triumphs of 20th-century art and science are contemporary to within a decade or so is perhaps misleading in its tendency to suggest that influence is at its most powerful and significant when apparently traceable to some particular upsetting discovery in the scientific world. To take a case, admittedly out of period, one could well imagine a more subtle and extended influence , for example, through Cartesianism in France than through the perhaps more accessible and dramatic achievements of Newton in England. Admittedly, Richardson shows himself wise to this by drawing attention to influential , though shadowy figures, such as Mach in the 19th century, but he does not pursue this theme in any generality. To have done so would, of course, have led him well beyond the field of visual art. Nevertheless, within its self-imposed limits and for all its selective, not to say episodic, treatment, Modern Art and Scienfifc Thorightis a model of informed criticism and does great service to the establishment of a scholarly and philosophical context in which art and science can be seen to illuminate each other. It is a sobering thought that so few critics and historians seem even remotely competent to attempt this; one can only hope that Richardson will extend his range even further towards elucidating the intense and seemingly irresoluble polarization of the modern spirit between artistic and scientific modes of creation. Psychology of the Arts. Hans Kreitler and Shulamith Kreitler. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 1972. 514...