Arte e espressione, studi e ricerche di psicologia dell’arte, by Alberto Argenton, published in 2008, by the publishing house Il Poligrafo, Padua, was translated into English and published by Routledge, in 2019, under the title Art and Expression: Studies in the Psychology of Art.
The English edition was edited by Ian Verstegen
From the book: Perception of expression distinguishes our cognitive activity in a pervasive, significant and peculiar way, and manifests itself paradigmatically in the vast world of artistic production.
Art and Expression examines the cognitive processes involved in artistic production, aesthetic reception, understanding and enjoyment. Using a phenomenological theoretical and methodological framework developed by Rudolf Arnheim and other important scholars interested in expressive media, Alberto Argenton considers a wide range of artistic works, which span the whole arc of the history of western graphic and pictorial art. Argenton analyses the representational strategies of a dynamic and expressive character that can be reduced to basic aspects of perception, like obliqueness, amodal completion and the bilateral function of contour, giving new directions relative to the functioning of cognitive activity.
Art and Expression is a monument to the fruitful collaboration of art historyand psychology, and Argenton has taken great care to construct a meaningful psychological approach to the arts based also on a knowledge of pictorial genres that allows him to systematically situate the works under scrutiny. Art and Expression is an essential resource for postgraduate researchers and scholars interested in visual perception, art and Gestalt psychology.
Art and Expression