Otto Rank
Art and Artist
trans. Charles Francis Atkinson
(1932/1989)
Chapter Four
THE PLAY-IMPULSE
AND ÆSTHETIC PLEASURE
...
[91] Worringer has very rightly objected that art has up to now
[92]
been studied far too much from the standpoint of the æsthetic effect of the finished product , in the case of the Classical above all. The catchword of this method of criticism was "intuition (Einfühlung)," a word minted by Theodor Lipps, which, according to Worringer, stops short at the psychology of Classical art. To this intuitive æsthetic of Classical art he opposes the abstraction-character of primitive art , which produces pure style-forms where the craving for "feeling oneself into" leads to naturalism . But valuable as this critical demarcation of the Classical art-feeling may be, Worringer's application of his psychology of style to the problem has not enabled him to grasp the spiritual part played in the forming of style by the individual's urge to artistic creativity.
i.e. To jump ahead a few pages:
abstraction and intuition
are
not specifically
characteristic of artistic experience,
but
are general
psychological attitudes
towards the world
.
