This paper challenges the assumption that lines, colors, and shapes have aesthetic effects that are the same for everyone. From an interdisciplinary perspective of art history and empirical aesthetics, we argue that assigning aesthetic effects to specific lines or colors may well be a valid theory for some aesthetic encounters, it falls short of explaining universal aesthetic effects. Our analysis proceeds in four steps: We begin by reconsidering the notion of aesthetic effect as defined in the tradition of Goethe. We (...) then demonstrate that doubts regarding the universality of aesthetic effects have existed since the nineteenth century and that the concept of aesthetic sensitivity was introduced around 1900 to account for individual differences. We point to the persistence of the idea of universality and, related to this, sensitivity by considering the ›Visual Aesthetic Sensitivity Test‹, first developed in the 1960s by Karl Otto Götz, Daniel Berlyne, and Hans-Jürgen Eysenck. We discuss new empirical research testing interpersonal agreement about aesthetic effects. The findings of these studies indicate a low agreement among the participants about aesthetic effects, raising serious doubts about assumed universality. In a concluding section, we discuss what remains of the universality claim and propose a weak theory of intersubjective agreement about aesthetic effects. (shrink)

The article examines an experimental survey that was conducted by Wassily Kandinsky and his students of the wall painting workshop at the Bauhaus Weimar in 1923. In his theoretical writings on art, Kandinsky had assumed there to be direct correspondences between basic colors (yellow, red, blue) and forms (triangle, square, circle), and he operationalized this assumption in the survey. The recent discovery of twenty-six completed questionnaires offers new insights into the scope of Kandinsky’s doctrine of color-form correspondence, and forces us (...) to reevaluate his position regarding scientific research. Against the background of perceptual sensitization as a Bauhaus teaching method, and through a qualitative analysis of the answers that participants gave in the survey, we show that Kandinsky’s empirical investigation of color-form correspondences was an analytical tool in his attempt to foster an artistic sensibility as regards the aesthetic effects of basic artistic means. (shrink)

The research literature on parenting support typically focuses on English-speaking countries, such as England, the United States and Australia. This article draws on a review, commissioned by the English government, which examined policies and services to support parenting in five European countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, and considered the evidence for effectiveness. In exploring differences between the five countries, and with England, this article raises questions about the way in which understandings of ?what works? can inform the (...) ways in which support for parents and families is designed and delivered. An emphasis on formal outcome evaluations, as in England, favours the use of standardised parenting programmes, which are more amenable to evaluation of effectiveness using quasi-experimental research designs. In some other European countries, support for parents and families is embedded in universal service provision, rather than a discrete, time-limited ?intervention?, and hence evaluation is more likely to involve assessment of individual progress (is this working for this family?) rather than assessment of the overall efficiency of a standardised programme. (shrink)

In opening this new edited volume, Moreau, Lee and Okpokiri argue for an ‘encompassing approach’ to engaging with discourses of family (3). They have certainly achieved this, presenting a very dive...