Can inanimate objects carry expressive meaning?
Expression resides in perceptual qualities of the stimulus patternRudolf Arnheim In achieving great quantifying skills we have seriously damaged our ability to focus upon the qualities of our surroundings and the effects of those qualities upon our worldview. With a little thought we can readily recognize that we do not do justice to what we see by describing it only with measurements of size, shape, wavelength, or speed. The dynamic qualities of shapes and events have proved to be an inseparable aspect of all visual experience. When we consciously open our eyes to the dynamic qualities conveyed by any object we will inevitably see these objects as carrying expressive meaning. All perceptual qualities have generality. We see redness, smallness, remoteness, swiftness, embodied in individual examples, but conveying a kind of experience, rather than a uniquely particular oneThe dynamic differences between Romanesque and Gothic architecture translate themselves automatically into states of