Studies in Comparative Aesthetics: Monographs of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, No. 2 by Eliot Deutsch, Art and Inquiry by Berel Lang (review)

Books 337 Arvon's analysis, however, is not metaphysical intellectualizing on the nature ofart. In his treatment ofpre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russian and Eastern European esthetic theory, Arvon attacks the larger problem of the relationship of artistic production to the construction of socialism. As Jameson explains, for Arvon, Marxist esthetics is 'a doctrine of the concrete, for which each problem must be re-evaluated in the light of the unique, historical situation in which it arises'. With a clarity and simplicity of style a-typical of French academia, Arvon undertakes to analyze the majoi developments in Marxist esthetic history. Beginning with Marx and Engels, Arvon questions and explains the discrepancies between esthetic theory and practice. Marx and Engels' theoretical writings are explained both as they relate to Hegelian esthetics and to the artistic controversies of the period. This same approach is used in his treatment of Lenin, Trotsky, Plekanov, V. G. Belinsky, N. G. Chernyshevsky and various other revolutionary estheticians. The various theoretical analyses are contrasted with the development of artistic production between 1907 and 1934. Arvon asks: what contradictions were posed by the futurist and constructionist movements of Mayakovsky and Meyerhold? In what way was the formalist school in direct opposition to the revolutionary esthetics in vogue at the time. Arvon also explains in great detail the issues at stake in the Brecht-Lukacs debate. These concrete historical problems serve to elucidate more complex theoretical ones such as the relation oftheory to practice, the nature of dialectics and the role of historicity in esthetic analysis. By its very approach, Marxist Esthetics brings up the problem of the relationship of the superstructure to the infrastructure. The developments in theoretical esthetics and artistic production closely follow the historical and political changes ofthe age. One is not merely the reflection of the other-as Arvon points outthey are complexly interrelated, and the nature of this interrelatedness is the crux of the issue. Arvon does not offer any simple solution to the problems raised. He tries, instead, to show how a Marxist approach differs from an 'idealist' one, and secondly, to emphasize the manysidedness of any question. The major weakness of the book stems from the author's attempt to make Marxism palatable to the middle-class by the elimination of the class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat, not to mention serious doubts about the Party system itself. Such a diluted Marxism, all too reminiscent of the French Communist Party leader Georges Marchais' version, might more accurately be called a 'dialectic humanism' than Marxism. Jameson seems more on the right track when he looks to the 'newer revolutions' for possible alternatives to old dilemmas. Nevertheless, the book remains an invaluable historical document. Vision and Artifact. Mary Henle, ed. Springer, New York, 1976. 186 pp., iIIus. $12.95. Reviewed by Kim James· This collection of papers, presented to Rudolf Arnheim on the occasion ofhis 70th birthday in 1974, is a feast for the mind. As a birthday gift to one of the leaders in the world of art and psychology, it contains a list of the contributors that reads like a roll-call of those who have, like Arnheim himself, provoked, disturbed and stimulated the calm waters ofpsycho-aesthetics. It is, in such company, wrong, perhaps, to single out individual contributors. However, mention of one or two names does give an indication of the stature of the whole: Dore Ashton, Henry Schaefer-Simmern, J. J. Gibson, Richard Held. Each of these names represents a section of the book. The book is divided, in fact, into only three sections, but within the section on visual perception there is a welcome emphasis on the type of approach used by Gibson at Cornell, an approach that has done much recently to liberate the investigation ofartistic phenomena from the constraints of the psychological laboratory. This almost forms a separate section, but, as would be expected in a tribute to Arnheim from his friends, it is more a logical extension of Arnheim's own approach than a new departure. *23 Hickmire, Wollaston, Wellingborough, Northants, England. Within this section special tribute should be paid to John M. Kennedy's contribution on Attention, Brightness and the Constructive Eye...