The Power of the Center: A Study of Composition in the Visual Arts, 20th Anniversary Edition

Rudolf Arnheim has been known, since the publication of his groundbreaking Art and Visual Perception in 1974, as an authority on the psychological interpretation of the visual arts. Two anniversary volumes celebrate the landmark anniversaries of his works in 2009. In The Power of the Center, Arnheim uses a wealth of examples to consider the factors that determine the overall organization of visual form in works of painting, sculpture, and architecture. The Dynamics of Architectural Form explores the unexpected perceptual consequences of architecture with Arnheim's customary clarity and precision.

What determines the overall organization of visual form in the works of painting, sculpture, and architecture? Artists have sometimes ventured practical rules of thumb, and mathematicians have looked for formulas that would prescribe ideal spatial relations between shapes. This companion to Rudolf Arnheim's classic, Art and Visual Perception, shows how compositional form makes sense only when it utilizes visual symbols of the life experience that makes art meaningful.

"Companion to [the author's] classic, 'Art and visual perception.'"--P. [4] of cover.

Rudolf Arnheim (1904-2007) was Professor Emeritus of the Psychology of Art at Harvard University and the author of many books, including Film as Art and Visual Thinking.