Environmental Aesthetics: Theory, Research, And Applications ed. by Jack L. Nasar (review)

perceived after exposure to appropriate musical contexts. Reference 1. David Rothenberg. "AModel for Pattern Perception with Musical Applications. Part 1: Pitch Structures as Order-Preserving Maps". MathematicalSystems Theoryll (1978) pp.I99-234;"A Model for Pattern Perception with Musical Applications . Part ll: The Information Content of Pitch Structures". Mathematical Systems Theory 11 (1978) pp. 353-372. ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS: THEORY, RESEARCH, AND APPLICATIONS byJack L. Nasar, ed. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, NY,U.S.A., 1988. ISBN: 0-521-34124-8. Reviewed fry ElmerH. Duncan, Department ofPhilosophy, BaylorUniversity, Waco, TX 76798, U.S.A. Some books are exciting and ajoy to read; this one is not. But it should be a useful book, for philosophers, psychologists , etc. It can also be useful for people of more mundane pursuits : politicians, city planners and various other sorts of urban and rural environmentalists. The book is based on two Environmental Design Research Association conferences, one held in College Park, Maryland, in 1982, the other in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1983. The papers of those conferences are published , supplemented with other papers by noted scholars on the topics of the conferences. As the subtitle of the book suggests , the material is divided into three major sections. First there is a short section on 'Theory', with papers by psychologists and at least one philosopher, Arnold Berleant, who represented the American Society for Aesthetics. Byfar the largest part of the book is the middle section, devoted to 'Empirical Studies'. This is subdivided into papers on method, and then studies of architectural interiors, architectural exteriors, urban scenes and natural and rural scenes. These studies feature an incredible number of preference studies with pictures, graphs, charts and statistical data. This method should provide a rich resource for anyone concerned with any aspect of environmental studies. Finally, the volume concludes with a short section of 'Applications', which deals with everything from scenic beauty to city planning and even includes a study of court cases dealing with aesthetic regulation. Again, this book is not ajoy to read, but many people will find it useful . It has a list of references at the end (pp. 493-517) that constitutes an excellent bibliography of the subject, and it also has indexes of authors and subjects. GESCHICHTE DER KUNSTGESCHICHTE: DER WEG EINER WISSENSCHAFf by Udo Kultermann. Prestel-Verlag, Munich, Germany, 1990. Reviewed fry FrankPopper, 49 quai des GrandsAugustins, Paris 75006, France. Udo Kultermann's Geschichte derKunstgeschichte (The History of the History ofArt), published for the first time in 1966 and whose second revised and enlarged edition appeared in 1990 at the Prestel-Verlag in Munich, is likely to be shortly available in languages other than German. In fact an English edition is in preparation at Abaris Books, Pleasantville, New York. As is claimed by this scholarly book publisher , this is the first work devoted to an overall history of the study of art history and fills a long-standing gap in art-historical literature. Although there have been books on the different periods and aspects of art history, there has not been available an analysis of how art historians in general have viewed art from antiquity to the present. This book, the American publishers claim, will acquaint the reader with questions of style, media, aesthetics , methods and philosophy that have been the focus of inquiry for art historians through the ages. I will concentrate on two aspects of Udo Kultermann's book that concern him and perhaps also most Leonardo readers particularly-that is, the originality of this work and its pertinence to the reflection on the art-sciencetechnology relationship. There is no doubt that what fascinates any reader of this book, whether layman or expert, at first sight is the audacious (some will perhaps say naive or simplistic) attempt to cover the whole body of art-historical work from Plato to Meyer Schapiro, Ernst Gombrich and Andre Chastel. But what is still more striking and pleasantly original in this publication is the large number of photographic portraits of art historians. What a pleasure and surprise to discover the faces of more than 200 admired thinkers who are present in our memory and our imagination only with their names and theories, who suddenly become...