在人类意识的发生、发展历史进程中,由意象(image)进而形成形象(icon),形象总是先于思想(idea);艺术活动是对纷繁杂陈但具有意义的情感和形式的明朗化过程,人类借助艺术将物质的世界纳入精神世界,从而以符号进行情感和思想交流才成为可能;审美创造是开拓人类意识和塑造人类思维模式的主要途径,艺术本身正是进化中的人类意识,是人类对客观存在的感性把握.这是里德在《形象与思想》一书中所阐述的艺术文化学理论的主要内容. In the process of the occurrence of human consciousness and the development of history, the formation of an image from an image always leads the idea. The artistic activity is a clarification of the numerous and complex but significant emotions and forms Process, human use of art to the material world into the spiritual world, so as to symbolic exchange of emotions and thinking is possible; aesthetic creation is to explore human consciousness and shaping the human way of thinking the main way of art itself is the evolution of human consciousness, It is human’s perception of the objective existence.This is the main content of Reed’s art culture theory as set forth in “Image and Thought”.