In common with so many areas of psychology the study of aesthetics and of art has attracted little theoretical consensus, and a variety of perspectives have been adopted. There is a tension between biological and sociological perspectives. Researchers like Berlyne and Eysenck have stressed the apparent universality of artistic practices and have postulated that these spring from some fundamental properties of the human nervous system; others (Crozier and Chapman, 1981) emphasise the social functions that art can perform and refer to cultural variation. Perspectives can also be classified in terms of their relationship to dominant perspectives within psychology. Psychoanalysis, the psychophysics of Fechner, Gestalt theory, the behaviorism and information theory of Berlyne, and more recently cognitive psychology (Gaver and Mandler, 1987) have in succession shaped enquiry into aesthetics. Methodologically, there is perhaps less diversity, and one thinks of the prototypical study as an experiment, where an opportunity sample of, say, college students is asked to indicate their degree of preference for each of a series of reproductions of paintings or of specially constructed abstract patterns.It is our contention that the psychology of art and of aesthetics is beset with fundamental problems and that it is in need of radical revision. We wish to argue that the model that underlies the apparent diversity of perspectives and that provides the justification for the experimental design sketched out above is simply inadequate. Finally, we offer an alternative model that might begin to do justice to the complexity of aesthetic experience. This model, as we have outlined elsewhere (Crozier and Greenhalgh, I 992) draws upon the principle of empathy that has often been discussed in the context of art but which, in our view, has not sufficiently been explored. 64 W . Ray Crozier and Paul Greenhalgh WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS THAT BESET THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ART?Each approach that has been taken has its critics, ofcourse, and hence many of the arguments about the adequacy or otherwise of individual contributions have already been rehearsed. It would be beyond the scope of one article to summarise these, and any attempt would perhaps deserve the criticism that we had been superficial in our appraisal or selective in our examinations. However we identify here three issues that, we believe, are unresolved after a century of research -an inability to encompass both content and form; a failure to recognise the complexity of the perception of art; and a neglect of the interaction among artist, object and spectator that is recognised by commentators on the arts as central to artistic experience. Content and form

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