Artistic Thinking as a Characteristic Property of Creative Intellect

The article is devoted to the analysis of cognitive processes in art. Professor Andreyev surveys different approaches to the problem dwelling on the theory of visual thinking popular in Cultural Studies and Aesthetics and investigates conceptual alternatives to this theory. Based on psychological data, the author offers a new approach to the problem: treating thinking as a process of the change of mental codes he extends this assumption to cognitive processes in art. It is for the first time in Aesthetics and Art Theory that different levels and aspects of visual thinking are separated and their relationships are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the inadequately researched and underestimated notion of ‘the artistic idea’, its various aspects and functions in artistic practice are explored.