The "Expression" chapter in Art and Visual Perception is less a formal chapter than a restatement of Arnheim's theories. As he writes, the whole book is about visual expression. His approach is summarized in the quote above, where expression is defined broadly as belonging to perceptual objects and events - no mention of people - and relating modes of behavior that can be organic or inorganic. In other words, expression is everywhere and possessed by everything. Such ideas have a relevance today where many theorists are interested in a Spinozistic "flat" ontology. 

​

Arnheim first criticized the associationist model of expression, which is apropos here in light of the revival of empathy as a vital concept since he died. The discovery of "mirror neurons" - neurons that both fire when undertaking an action and observing a similar action - spurred the belief that expressiveness is hard-wired into our neurological makeup. Yet Arnheim would argue that empathy is different from expression, for as in the older empathy doctrine mirror neurons are still constructions triggered from visual stimuli, whereas for Arnheim expression is in the object. 

​

Arnheim adduces examples from anthropology and psychology to argue the "priority of expression." Whatever the fate of the mirror neuron doctrine, the contemporary focus on the body, embodiment, and the material self has reinforced issues of direct expression. Of course, because it is the body that lives, labors, and loves that is of interest today, the emphasis is different from that put forward by Arnheim. It is not the body seen by the eye, but the body lived and felt, with all the connections to economy and sexuality. 

​

​

​

​

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bill Viola, still from Tristan's Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain under a Waterfall), 2005, video/sound installation] 

 

Arnheim's ends his chapter with Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, as an example of a work whose "structural skeleton" continues to reinforce its meaning through repeated viewings and further investigations into its meaning and significance. We have seen repeatedly that contemporary art cannot do exactly this due to the fact that its primary message lies outside itself, while still correlated with it. Nevertheless, many works still profit from this notion of reinforcement in a way that "The forces that characterize the meaning of the story come alive in the observer and produce the kind of stirring participation that distinguishes artistic experience from the detached acceptance of information" (p. 460). An example might be the video installations of Bill Viola. In Tristan's Ascension the video artist has orchestrated a figure appearing to ascend with water almost issuing from him, as if it is his soul. This is cleverly created by playing the tape in reverse and in slow motion. The effect is an other-worldly experience of encompassing sound and power. While the action of the force of the water and weight of the figure are relatively non-associative (except for the obvious Biblical reference), the installation of a life-sized figure in a dark gallery with surrounding sound creates a powerful experience of familiar but alien power.

 

This is a useful image with which to conclude a reflection of Arnheim, perceptual psychology and art. It admits that art seeks its significance in the larger world, reaching from the forms, environments and bodies from which it starts, yet returning to them for maximum expressive impact. 

​