Art, Design and Gestalt Theory

University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks

Faculty Publications Faculty Work

1998

Roy R. Behrens University of Northern Iowa

Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy

Part of the Art and Design Commons

Recommended Citation Behrens, Roy R., "Art, Design and Gestalt Theory" (1998). Faculty Publications. 2. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/art_facpub/2

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Work at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Art, Design and Gestalt Theory

Roy R Behrens

ABSTRACT iiG estalt psychology began in Germany in of specific elements. Clearly, ar- 1910. While traveling by train on vacation, a 30-year-old gued Ehrenfels, if a melody and Gestalt psychology Czech-born psychologist named Max Wertheimer was seized the notes that comprise it are so was founded in 1910 by by an idea when he saw flashing lights at a railroad crossing independent, then a whole is not three German psychologists, Max Wertheimer, Kurt that resembled lights encircling a theater marquee. He got off simply the sum of its parts, but a Koffka and Wolfgang K6hler. the train in Frankfurt am Main, where he bought a motion synergistic "whole effect," or ge- The author discusses ge- picture toy called a "zoetrope" (Fig. 1). When a strip of pic- stalt [2]. Likewise, Wertheimer stalt theory's influence on tures is placed inside and viewed through the slits in a zoet- concluded, the effect of apparent modern art and design, de- scribes its resemblance to rope, a succession of stationary pictures appear to be a single, movement is generated not so Japanese-inspired theories moving picture. In his hotel room, Wertheimer made his own much by its individual elements as of aesthetics and finds evi- picture strips, consisting not of identifiable objects, but of by their dynamic interrelation. dence of a mutual, if lim- simple abstract lines, ranging from vertical to horizontal. By Wertheimer remained in ited, interest between the varying these elements, he was able to investigate the condi- Frankfurt for more than 5 gestaltyears. psychologists and certain artists. tions that contribute to the illusion of motion pictures, an ef- He continued his research of ap- fect that is technically known as "apparent movement" [1]. parent movement at the Psycho- Years earlier, Wertheimer had studied in Prague with an logical Institute, where he used a Austrian philosopher named Christian von Ehrenfels, who sophisticated projector called a "tachistoscope" that enabled had published a paper in 1890 entitled "On Gestalt Qualities" him to flash shapes on the screen successively for precise in- in which he pointed out that a melody is still recognizable crements of time. He recruited as subjects two younger psy- when played in different keys, even though none of the notes chologists, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler. After gathering are the same, and that abstract form attributes such as data for more than a year, he shared the results with his col- "squareness" or "angularity" can be conveyed by a wide range leagues, then published his findings in 1912 in a paper titled "Experimental Studies of the Perception of Movement" [3]. This was the first important event in the history of gestalt psy-

Fig. 1. Engraving of a zoetrope, a motion picture toy invented in En- chology, a movement that grew from the subsequent work of gland before 1850 by W.G. Horner. This is the toy that Wertheimer its prodigious triumvirate: Wertheimer, Koffka and Kohler. bought when he left the train at Frankfurt am Main in 1910. The three founding gestalt psychologists were separated by World War I, then reunited in 1920, when Kohler became Di- rector of the Psychological Institute at the University of Ber- lin, where Wertheimer was already a faculty member. While maintaining contact with Koffka, who continued to teach near Frankfurt, Wertheimer and Kohler established a graduate program, located in the abandoned Imperial Palace, and began a research journal called Psychologische Forschung (Psy- chological Investigation). For the most part, the students did not learn by attending lectures but by actually conducting research using fellow students as subjects and by preparing ar- ticles for publication. The success of the method is evidenced by the number of teachers and students at the Institute whose names are now familiar in psychology, including Rudolf Arnheim, Kurt Lewin, Wolfgang Metzger, Hans Wallach, Bluma Zeigarnik, Tamara Dembo, Karl Duncker, Maria Ovsiankina, Herta Kopfermann and Kurt Gottschaldt [4]. Koffka left Europe for the United States in 1924; Wertheimer in 1933. By the early 1930s, the Psychological In- stitute had begun to erode. When the National Socialists h fr- came to power in 1933, among their immediate menacing acts was the dismissal of Jewish university professors, from

Roy R. Behrens, (artist, writer, teacher), 2022 X Avenue, Dysart, IA 52224-9767, U.S.A. E-mail: .

? 1998 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 299-303, 1998 299 sented with discarded materials (wire mesh, cardboard, newspapers, match- boxes, phonograph needles and razor blades) and instructed to basteln-to improvise or "rig up" something. It is said that this method was influenced by Friedrich Froebel's pedagogy of "education through play" (in part because Johannes Itten, who started the foundations course, was a Froebel-trained el- ementary school teacher), especially the celebrated Froebel "gifts" (cited by Frank Lloyd Wright as pivotal in his early education), which were sets of wooden blocks, presented in sequence to chil- dren between the ages of 2 months and 6 years, that could be rearranged in a variety of configurations [11]. This is also surprisingly similar to gestalt psychologist Duncker's "functional Fig. 2. World War I American ship camouflage, intended to confuse the aim of German U- fixedness" experiments, published in boat torpedo gunners (circa 1918). That perceptual grouping tendencies are inborn and 1935, in which subjects were asked to universal is suggested by the cross-cultural effectiveness of camouflage, which reliably improvise solutions to various problems works by subverting the "laws" that the gestalt psychologists postulated. In high-similarity, using seemingly inappropriate materi- or blending, camouflage, objects and their surroundings are so similar as to be nearly in- als. In one, for example, the subject was distinguishable. In high-difference, or dazzle, camouflage, as in this example, the continu- shown a table with a variety of common ity of a shape is interrupted by a surface design of unrelated, contrasting elements. (Photo courtesy of National Archives and Record Service) items on it, including a cord, nail and weight scattered among them, and asked to construct a pendulum. Most Nobel Prize scientists to graduate assis- of lectures about gestalt theory by Count solved the problem by using the weight tants. Rumored as being in sympathy Karlfried von Diirckheim, a visiting psy-as a hammer to pound the nail into the with "the Jew Wertheimer," Kohler pub- chologist from the University of Leipzig, wall, tying the cord to the weight and licly condemned anti-Semitism and pro- in the winter of 1930-1931 [9]. suspending the improvised pendulum tested the dismissals in a Berlin newspa- Albers's curiosity about gestalt theory from the nail. But that solution oc- per article, the last such article allowed may be significant because he is now curred less readily to other subjects if, under the Nazis. To his surprise, he was commonly credited with a resurgence during of instructions, the weight was de- not arrested, but the intimidation interest in "simultaneous contrast," scribed as a "pendulum weight" and al- mounted, and in 1935, he too emigrated which von Dirckheim discussed in his ready tied to the cord. In such instances, to the United States [5]. lectures. Recognized and used by artists None of the gestalt psychologists were for centuries, the effect was described artists, much less designers, but early scientifically on in 1839 by a French chem-Fig. 3. Ryan McAdam, trademark for a hy- there were signs of a mutual interest ist,be- Michel-Eugene Chevreul, who potheticalessen- restaurant called Dada Cafe (1996). The gestalt psychologists described tween the two disciplines. In 1927, fortially found that a color may appear to the effects of similarity grouping, the innate change, often dramatically, when moved example, gestalt psychologist Rudolf tendency to constellate or to see as belong- Arnheim visited the Dessau Bauhaus, from one background to another. ing togetherA elements that look alike. An- then published an article in Die swatch of red, for example, may exhibit ticipating that tendency, the designer of Weltbiihne praising the honesty and clar- one intensity on a green background, this logo has set up deliberate visual ity of its building design [6]. Soon after, another on orange. As a result of rhymes this by the recurrent use of circular phenomenon, there is no easy answer shapes, to s-shaped scallops and several thick- gestaltist Kurt Lewin commissioned Pe- nesses of line. ter Behrens (teacher of Bauhaus the question "What is the true appear- founder Walter Gropius) to design ance his of a color?" Simultaneous contrast home in Berlin, but, after a disagree- anticipated holism, in the sense that ment, Bauhaus furniture designer gestaltists are likely to say that all such Marcel Breuer was asked to complete appearances of a color are legitimate, the interior [7]. In 1929, Kohler de- because we always experience percep- clined a Bauhaus invitation to lecture tual wholes, not isolated parts. We never because of a scheduling conflict, seeso hisfigures (or swatches) alone, only dy- student Karl Duncker spoke instead. namic In "figure-ground" relationships the audience was the painter Paul [10]. Klee, who had known about Wertheimer's re- Of equal interest is Albers's and search as early as 1925 [8]. But other graphic designer Laszl6 Moholy-Nagy's Bauhaus artists were also interested, in-emphasis on unusual uses of common cluding Wassily Kandinsky and Josef materials in the Bauhaus foundations Albers, both of whom attended a series course, in which students were pre-

300 Behrens, Art, Design and Gestalt Theory constellate, or to see as "belonging Kepes, to- a Hungarian-born graphic de- gether" elements that look alike signer(called who taught with Moholy-Nagy at "similarity grouping"), are close together the New Bauhaus in Chicago; and Art ("proximity grouping") or have struc-and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the tural economy ("good continuation"). Creative Eye (1954) by Rudolf Arnheim, a That such tendencies are inborn, not Berlin gestaltist who emigrated to the learned, is suggested by the cross-cul- United States, became professor of the tural effectiveness of sleight-of-hand Psychology of Art at Harvard University magic and camouflage, both of which and published 13 books on gestalt work by subverting the "laws" described theory and art [16]. in Wertheimer's paper (Fig. 2). But the Surely, one of the reasons artists em- Fig. 4. Thomas J. Lechtenberg, trademark interplay of such grouping tendencies is braced gestalt theory is that it provided, for a hypothetical airline company (1996). far from simple, because: (1) as the ef- in their minds, scientific validation of In this example of reversiblefigure-ground, fect of simultaneous contrast discussed age-old principles of composition and the white background area between the two earlier demonstrates, the appearance page of layout. A French byname for ge- airplanes can be perceived as a "Z" by parts is determined by wholes; (2) staltjudg- theory is la psychologie de laforme. In- switching attention from figure to ground. Comparable phenomena can be found in ments about similarity or proximity advertently, are due to its emphasis on flat the traditional Chinese yin-yang symbol, always comparative; and (3) in composi- abstract patterns, structural economy and in the compositional equivalence of tions as intricate as paintings, posters and implicitness, gestalt theory became light and dark (or positive and negative) and page layouts, parts may be purposely associated with the modernist tendency called notan in Japanese art. made to connect by one grouping towardten- "aestheticism," the belief that- dency (similarity of color, for example) like music and architecture-all art is but to disconnect by others (distance, essentially abstract design and, as Ellen Duncker concluded, the weight and the for example, or differences of shape, Lupton size and J. Abbott Miller character- cord were assumed to be linked (as a ge- or direction) (Fig. 3) [14]. ize it in Design Writing Research (1996), stalt), verbally and visually, making it dif- It is likely that few artists were directly that "design is, at bottom, an abstract, ficult to perceive the weight separately aware of Wertheimer's dot essay, one formal ex- activity" in which the "text [or as a hammer [12]. ception being Paul Klee, who (as subject matter] is secondary, added only What may be gestalt psychology's most Marianne Teuber has shown) used some after the mastery of form" [ 17]. enduring influence on art and design of its diagrams in his paintings in the Aestheticism had been anticipated in came from a paper by Max Wertheimer 1930s [15]. Rather, they learned about 1851 byJohn Ruskin in a passage in titled "Theory of Form," published in his "laws of visual organization" from Stones of Venice, the book that spawned 1923 [13]. Nicknamed "the dot essay" other writings, long after the essay was the arts and crafts movement, in which because it was illustrated with abstract first published, and particularly from he stated that "the arrangement of col- patterns of dots and lines, Wertheimer two books that had an enormous and ors and lines is an art analogous to the concluded in it that certain gestalts lasting are effect on art and design compositioneduca- of music, and entirely inde- enhanced by our innate tendencies to tion: Language of Vision (1944) by Gy6rgy pendent of the representation of facts"

Fig. 5. LisaJames, (left) collage portrait of Sigmund Freud (1996). (right) Underlying this composition of typographic and pictorial elements is an implied grid system, an arrangement of intersecting lines that resembles Oriental lattice patterns and plaid fabrics, like those illustrated in Arthur Dow's Composition. As anticipated by gestalt theory, edges that align in space appear to belong together. Tartan compositional grids are widely used in graphic design, especially in page layouts.

O~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. _. ------

Behrens, Art, Design and Gestalt Theory 301 [18]. More than 2 decades later, this [21]. Even the research of embedded trivialized or ignored when abstraction view was reaffirmed byJames A.M. Whis- figures by gestaltist Kurt Gottschaldt has is made the primary focus of design tler, a leading figure in the aesthetic an astonishing parallel in Dow's use of thinking" [26]. movement, for which the unfortunate tartan compositional grids (Fig. 5), Curiously, Lupton and Miller use slogan became "art for art's sake." "As which were adapted from Oriental lat- comparable methods to disavow gestalt music is the poetry of sound," Whistler tice patterns and apparently applied by theory: They abstract, simplify and rein- wrote in 1878 (in The Gentle Art of Mak- Frank Lloyd Wright and Piet Mondrian terpret it, isolating it from much of its ingEnemies), "so is painting the poetry of in architecture and painting, respec- historical, linguistic and social back- sight, and the subject-matter has noth- tively [22]. ground and, thereby, ironically, largely ing to do with harmony of sound or of WhileJapanese aesthetics contributed ignore its "cultural interpretation." A fi- color" [19]. To underscore the analogy to the trend toward geometric abstrac- nal irony is that their own elegant books between art and music, and to promote tion in turn-of-the-century art and de- make exaggerated use of haute couture ty- the idea of art as design, he included in sign, there is no evidence that the gestalt pography and page layouts, with pur- the titles to his paintings musical terms psychologists were directly or knowingly posely dissonant grouping effects, em- such as "arrangements," "nocturnes" influenced by eitherJapanese art or aes- bedded tartan grids and structural and "harmonies." theticism. "Our place at the Imperial economy-devices that Wertheimer Like many of his contemporaries, Palace," recalled Rudolf Arnheim in a sought to explain in 1910 when he Whistler was fascinated by Japanese letterart, in 1995, "was as monastically in- founded gestalt psychology. especially Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, bred as most scientific breeding places, which were introduced to Europe andand although people like Kohler and References and Notes America after Japanese ports were Wertheimer were interested in art and opened to foreign trade in 1854. At music,the less in literature, [the influences 1. For detailed information on Wertheimer's ap- close of the nineteenth century, there of Japonisme and the Aesthetic Move- parent movement experiments and the formula- tion of gestalt theory, see Gregory A. Kimble, was a frenzy of interest in things Japa- ment] had no resonance there. For me, Michael Wertheimer and Charlotte White, eds., nese (a trend called "Japonisme"), they all came later. Okakura's The Book Portraits of of Pioneers in Psychology (Washington, D.C., and Hillsdale, NJ: American Psychological Associa- which was fueled by a handful of popu- Tea is still one of my cherished posses- tion and Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991); lar books by British, American andJapa- sions, and so is a booklet by Fenollosa Morton Hunt, The Story of Psychology (New York: nese authors, notably Ernest Fenollosa's on Chinese ideographs.... A book byDoubleday, 1993); Robert C. Bolles, The Story of Psychology: A Thematic History (Pacific Grove, The Masters of the Ukiyo-e (1896), Arthur Dow on composition is unknown to me CA: Brooks/Cole, 1993); and Mitchell G. Ash, Ge- Dow's Composition (1899), Denman evenW. now" [23]. stalt Psychology in German Culture, 1890-1967: Ho- Ross's A Theory of Pure Design (1906) and Wertheimer and Koffka died in the lism and the Questfor Objectivity (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995). Kakuzo Okakura's The Book of Tea (1906) early 1940s; Kohler in 1967. Today, ge- [20]. Published in more than 20 edi- stalt theory's influence in the field 2. Regarding of Ehrenfels, see Ash [1] pp. 88ff; and Fritz Heider, "Gestalt Theory: Early History and tions between 1899 and the early 1940s, psychology is unobtrusive in the Reminiscences,"sense in Mary Henle, Julian Jaynes and Dow's book in particular had a far-reach- that its findings have all been absorbed JohnJ. Sullivan, eds., Historical Conceptions of Psychol- ogy (NewYork: Springer, 1973). ing effect on the formal training of art- by more recent viewpoints and because ists, designers and architects in the most of the prominent gestalt psycholo- 3. Ash [1] pp. 118ff. United States. gists have either retired or died. The 4. Thereno- is a brief but vivid recollection of student There is a persuasive resemblance be- table exception is Arnheim, now inlife his at the Psychological Institute in Rudolf Arnheim, "My Life in the Art World," a talk pre- tween gestalt principles and the Japa- early 90s, who continues to write pro- sented at the School of Art, Univ. of Michigan, Ann nese-inspired aesthetics that Dow and vocative essays on psychology and Arbor, art on 8 February 1984. The list of names pro- others propagated. For example, the ge-and whose latest book on art, a collec- vided here was verified through my correspon- dence with Arnheim. stalt emphasis on the dynamic interplay tion of essays titled The Split and the Struc- of parts and wholes had been antici- ture, was published in 1996 [24]. 5. The story of Kohler's courageous attempt to pre- serve the Psychological Institute is told in Mary pated as early as the third century B.C. in In recent years, Arnheim has been Henle, "One Man Against the Nazis-Wolfgang China by a passage in the Tao Te Ching outspoken in his criticism of some as- K6hler," American Psychologist 33, No. 10, 939-944 (1978). that states that although a wheel is made pects of postmodern culture, as implied of 30 spokes, it is the space between the by the title of one of his books, To the 6. Rudolf Arnheim, "Das Bauhaus in Dessau," Die spokes that determines the overall form Rescue of Art. There are impairments in Weltbiihne (1927); translated by Arnheim as "The Bauhaus in Dessau,"Print 51, No. 6, 60-61 (1997). of the wheel. The phenomenon of recurrent design, he believes, that culti- Arnheim was 23 years old in 1927 when he traveled versible figure-ground (Fig. 4) has pre- vate "an unbridled extravagance, a vul- to Dessau from Berlin to visit the Bauhaus, which cedents in the yin-yang symbol and, garityin of taste, and a triviality of had moved there from Weimar the previous year. Arnheim told me in a letter dated 16 June 1993 Japanese art, in the compositional thought" [25]. In return, some that during his visit he saw only the buildings, be- equivalence of light and dark, called postmodern critics, particularly Lupton cause "it was in the summer and nobody, either fa- mous or infamous, was around that I remember." notan. The gestaltists' ideas of structural and Miller, have attacked gestalt theory economy and closure (the tendency asto interpreted by Arnheim, Kepes and 7. A photograph of Lewin's home, designed by Behrens and Breuer, is found in Tilmann perceive incomplete forms as complete) Donis A. Dondis (author of A Primer Buddenseig,of ed., Berlin 1900-1933: Architecture and are echoed in theJapanese emphasis onVisual Literacy), contending that it "iso- Design (New York and Berlin: Cooper-Hewitt Mu- elimination of the insignificant and latesin visual perception from linguistic seum and Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1987) p. 30. the ideas of implicitness and the active interpretation [and thereby] encour- 8. Regarding Duncker's Bauhaus lecture and complicity of the viewer, because genu- ages indifference to cultural meaning." Wertheimer's influence on Klee, see Marianne Teuber, "Blue Night by Paul Klee," in Mary Henle, ine beauty, as Okakura explained, To study abstract composition is not in ed., Vision and Artifact (New York: Springer, 1976) "could be discovered only by one who itself objectionable, they argue, but pp. 131-151. mentally completed the incomplete" "design's linguistic and social aspects are 9. See Teuber [8] p. 144.

302 Behrens, Art, Design and Gestalt Theory 10. Regarding simultaneous contrast, see Michel- 15. Teuber [8] p. 134. Denman Ross, A Theory of Pure Design (Boston, MA: Eugene Chevreul, The Principles of Harmony and Con- Houghton Mifflin, 1907); and Kakuzo Okakura, trast of Colors (New York: Garland, 1980); andJosef 16. See Gy6rgy Kepes, Language of Vision (Chicago, The Book of Tea (Boston, MA: Fox, Duffield and Albers, Interaction of Color (New Haven, CN: Yale IL: Paul Theobald, 1944; New York: Dover, 1996); Company, 1906). A discussion of the influence of Univ. Press, 1972). Laszl6 Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion (Chicago, IL: these books, the aesthetic movement and Paul Theobald, 1947); and Rudolf Arnheim, Art Japonisme is found in Kevin Nute, Frank Lloyd 11. For illustrated discussions of Froebel and his and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye Wright and Japan (New York: Van Nostrand influence on art and design, see Ellen Lupton and(Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1954; re- Reinhold, 1993). J. Abbott Miller, eds., The ABC's of AO The Bau-vised 1974). haus and Design Theory (New York: Princeton Archi- 21. Nute [20] p. 127. tectural Press, 1991); and Norman Brosterman, 17. In- Ellen Lupton andJ. Abbott Miller, Design Writ- venting Kindergarten (New York: Harry N. Abrams, ing Research: Writing on Graphic Design (New York: 22. See Behrens [14] p. 14; and Nute [20] p. 98. 1997). Princeton Architectural Press, 1996) p. 62. 23. Rudolf Arnheim, letter to the author dated 6 12. See Karl Duncker, "On Problem-Solving," in 18. Quoted in Wylie Sypher, Rococo to Cubism in Art July 1995. John F. Dashiell, ed., Psychological Monographs 58, and Literature (New York: Vintage Books, 1960) pp. 24. See Rudolf Arnheim, The Split and the Structure No. 5 (1945). 144-145. (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1996). 13. See Teuber [8]. 19. Quoted in Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves, 25. Rudolf Arnheim, To the Rescue of Art (Berkeley, eds., Artists on Art (New York: Pantheon, 1945) p. 14. For the application of Wertheimer's grouping 347. CA: Univ. of California Press, 1992) p. viii. principles to camouflage, artwork and page layouts, 26. Lupton and Miller [17] p. 62. see Roy R. Behrens, "Illustration as Design," in Illus- 20. See Ernest Fenollosa, The Masters of the Ukiyo-e tration as an Art (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1896); Arthur Hall, 1986) chapter 1. Dow, Composition (Boston, MA: J.M. Bowles, 1899); Manuscript received 19 December 1996.

Behrens, Art, Design and Gestalt Theory 303