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ABSTRACT theories of art appreciation at the time but also articulation appreciationbutalso art time of the attheories reveal not only scrutiny of the shortcomings in the dominant generated by World War II. A closer look at the essay’s ideas turmoil wider the to due partly gotten after publication [7], for largely Koffka’sso, and Evendormant remained essay tant contribution for advancing a scientifictheory of art symposium [4]. this atforeshadowed already problems the with likewise struggled have art of theory multidisciplinary a toward attemptssubsequentnumerous Indeed, task. daunting a it considering reluctance, great with symposium the to tion the invita accepted Koffka isolation, in largely treated psychology, been physiology—haveknowledge,historically emotion, evolution,ecology, culture, of perspectives from received array inawide of journals [3]. specialization in approaches to art and was reviewed and well its time, the symposium departed from narrow departmental for Visionary himself). (Koffka psychologist a and Nahm) C. (Milton philosopher a Carpenter), (Rhys archaeologist an Bernheimer), (Richard historian art an from tributions con multidisciplinary together brought occasion The [2]. Philadelphia near held Symposium Art Mawr Bryn the at ogist tenured at Smith College, Northampton—participated In 1940, Kurt Koffka [1]—aleading German Gestalt psychol- of aestheticexperience. intentional selfholdsthepotentialforadvancingscientifictheories object,itsperceptualqualitiesandrelationwiththe the art Koffka’sin theGestaltcontributiontoart. emphasison particular isreviewedwiththehopethatitwillsparknewinterest Koffka ofaestheticsbytheeminentGestaltistKurt A neglectedtheory Koffka’s AestheticGestalt GENERAL NOTE ©2017 ISAST with thisissue. See
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lectual legacy.lectual Koffka’sof essence and intel origins the revisit to relevant and timely it consider we reason this For science. modern ciation. Hisis of theory considerable potential relevance for appre aesthetic of theory holistic more a toward path a of in the psychology ofin the he art; noted: sidered this the most serious of all the problems he identified production the and enjoyment ofwork a ofKoffka art. con- both in emotion ofnature and place the with preoccupied art was irrelevant to a serious theory of aesthetic experience. objective investigation, reinforcing the idea that the work of of domain a be not could aesthetics that evidence as taken presented artwork. perceptually the object, art experienced the but art ofwork physical the not is explanationrequires What importance: great of is itself artwork the of psychology the ToKoffka, artist the either of psychology the onto focus their divided time to understand problems the involved” [9]. texts.”that“psychologyHe extent some asserts to failed has by lifting lines, colors,sounds, rhythms, words out ofall con “aestheticresultsgetting in persisted Psychologistsstill [8]. plague current attempts to unite art, psychology and science still ofwhich sometime, ofthe ofart psychology ofthe ries Koffka pointedseveral significant out problemstheo- the in OF SHORTCOMINGS INTHEOR aesthetic experience aesthetic resultsexperience from spectators projecting their the that insist which art, of theories empathy-based called so- the in role central a played notion this emotion; plex And third, the dominant approaches in the 1940s were 1940s the in approachesdominant the third, And Second, range wide the of individual responses to art was the of theories dominant the that was problem first The Typically, the aesthetic experience was considered a com- emotions nor relation their to [10]. art these neither understand will one self, the in events or of As long as one tries to study these emotions purely as states A T HE PSYC HE or the the the the or N TONDER HOLOG spectator ENRO o.5,N.1 p 35,21 53 LEONARDO, Vol. 50, No.1,pp.53–57, 2017 Y OFART , thus neglecting the work of art. of work the neglecting thus , S IES - - - own emotive state onto the art object. According to Theodor tual datum, Koffka presented an alternative to the predomi- Lipps, a founding father of the theory of empathy, the experi- nant psychological approach, which was focusing exclusively ence of art is equated with aesthetic empathy, according to on the artist and spectator. The emphasis on the phenom- which a marble column looks powerful because the spectator enal art object firmly establishes Koffka’s analytical approach unconsciously projects onto the column his own kinesthetic within the Gestalt concern for the lawfulness of perceptual experience of what it would feel like to stretch out limbs to organization of visual stimuli, i.e. an objective science of ex- support and hold up a roof [11]. Similarly, Herbert Langfeld perienced perceptual qualities. argues that “the objects cannot be pleasing unless they give The phenomenal organization of the perceived art object rise to unified emphatic responses, because the nervous set is experienced at three levels [14,15]. Its primary qualities are requires such unification” [12]. Koffka remarks: “Inasmuch nearly atomic features, such as local position, orientation, as the appeal of the work of art issues from its structure, it motion. Secondary qualities relate holistic properties: An is this structure, and not the emotion which this structure object can be round, smooth, spiky, soft, colored, dynamic. arouses, that is of primary importance for our understanding Tertiary qualities convey more nuanced values: An object can of the psychology of art” [13]. be graceful, sad, slow, cheerful. Perceptual qualities, at the Koffka argues in great detail how a deeper understanding tertiary level, are experienced as deeply meaningful. of the experienced art object could surmount some problem- Koffka refers to these qualities as the physiognomic prop- atic discrepancies in emotive states of the self, pitted against erties of the phenomenal object, a term coined by Heinz the aesthetic experience of art. Werner and traced back to Franz Brentano, whose concep- tualization of phenomenal experience can rightly be con- KOFFKA’S PSYCHOLOGY OF ART sidered a cornerstone of the Gestalt School of Psychology. The central tenet in Koffka’s theory is that aesthetic experi- According to Werner, we perceive stimuli physiognomically ence emerges as a relationship between the intentional self of when we react to their dynamic, emotional and expressive the spectator and the internal phenomenological presenta- qualities, as opposed to acknowledging only their metric tion of the physical work of art. characteristics [16]. Werner introduced the notion of the This relationship is construed as a field structure of which physiognomic mode, in contrast to the geometric-technical the strength, directionality, width and depth characterize the mode of perceiving. The two modes are oriented toward dif- nature of the aesthetic experience. There are thus three com- ferent classes of perceptual attributes and are functionally ponents to the theory: the self, the phenomenal object and independent: Despite being potentially correlated with pri- the field relationship, connecting the former two (Fig. 1). The mary or secondary qualities (shapes, configurations, colors self here denotes the emotive kernel consciously experienced or sounds), physiognomic qualities are neither derived from as centered on an observer. nor reducible to them. Importantly, physiognomic qualities By drawing attention to analysis of the artwork as percep- cannot be captured by such classical Gestalt notions as “fig- ural goodness,” or Prägnanz, because these can apply indifferently to phenomena of both objec- tive-technical and physiognomic perception. For Koffka, physiognomic characteristics are outstanding instances of qualities with “re- quiredness,” which determine behavior directly: “Objects speak to us through their physiognomic character which, therefore, cannot, in their turn be caused by the responses which they provoke” [17]. The notion of expressive and physiognomic qualities overcomes three major problems asso- ciated with the above-mentioned empathy-based approaches to aesthetic experience. First, there is the problem of contingency: In a behaviorist ap- proach, the relationship between artistic stimulus and aesthetic response is not anticipated through rational logic, but is listed in a blind lookup-table, acquired through associative learning. In a very rudimentary example, roundness could map to beauty, jaggedness to shock and redness to pas- sion; it is only a mapping, without the internal
Fig. 1. A schematic depiction of Koffka’s theory. Aesthetic experience here is characterized relations that lead to these associations. The phys- as a field structure connecting the self and the phenomenal object. The latter is organized into iognomy of the phenomenal art object naturally three levels of qualities, each level spanning different attributes. (© Gert J. van Tonder) facilitates a rational connection with emotive
54 Spehar and van Tonder, Koffka’s Aesthetic Gestalt
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_01020 by guest on 30 September 2021 states of the self, rendering relation between the self and the perceived art object intelli- gible and meaningful, without resorting to a lookup-table. For example, a construct with a physiognomy of funniness would naturally elicit an emo- tional expression of joy and laughter. Second, in empathy-based art theories, the aesthetic ex- perience results from spec- tators projecting their own emotive state onto the art object, but this thesis proves paradoxical. Koffka points out that empathy theory is at risk of circular reasoning in that an emotive aspect must first be recognized in the work of art before the appropriate emo- tion can be projected onto the Fig. 2. Examples of different self-object field configurations. (a) The field may be concentrated on a shallow perceived object. If percep- range of qualities or (b) confined to a narrow range of qualities on each level. (c) If values of the self dominate tion in itself is the source of the field, a self-centered field emerges or (d) the qualities of the object may supersede personal values. Thick lines denote strong connections in the self-object field; opaqueness indicates directionality. (© Gert J. van Tonder) phenomenal physiognomy, it makes more sense that men- tally the emotive states of the selves would be connected perceives when looking out over a forested hillside: most with the physiognomic character of the world, instead of an likely seeing the different grades of trees, expected volumet- obsolete “projection” of emotions onto perceived objects. ric harvest of wood, locations on the slopes that would fa- Third, empathy theory taken to its logical terminus im- cilitate roads and the potential profit. Another person may plies that I should experience my own emotional states pro- connect at many levels and with different kinds of phenom- jected onto objects. We know from experience that we do enal qualities, becoming “lost” in the perceived object (Fig. not confuse the roundness of the ball with ourselves feeling 2d), passionately experiencing the forested hillside’s beauty, round; we perceive the happiness of the child in the arms of for example. its mother, even if we do not necessarily feel happy ourselves, UNIQUENESS OF KOFFKA’S AESTHETIC GESTALT nor do we confuse it with our own happiness. As Koffka points out, the work of art maintains the essence of its own Science has made great strides in understanding the percep- phenomenal character in connection with the emotional tual organization of primary qualities and moderate progress state of the spectator. in secondary qualities, but there is little that could be consid- ered a science of physiognomy [18]. Thus there clearly exists a THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES domain for focused research if Koffka’s theory is to translate Differences in individual responses to art supported the con- into a true science of aesthetics. viction that aesthetics was a matter of subjective speculation. Obviously, other Gestalt scholars have also contributed Assigning a field relationship between self and phenomenal to this area. Gestalt influences in art and psychology of art object, Koffka navigates the problem of individual differences emerged already at the very beginnings of the Gestalt move- from two angles. ment [19] and have remained an influential force, most no- First, even if different spectators might hypothetically have tably through the work of Rudolf Arnheim [20] and Ernst the same aesthetic preferences, their responses could still dif- Gombrich [21]. With hindsight, it’s surprising that Koffka’s fer if they organized the same sensory stimuli into a different psychology of art did not become more widely influential, phenomenal physiognomy. given that his theoretical views on perception in general have Alternatively, different intentional states of the self may survived nearly intact [22]. It appears that, except in the case connect very differently to the potential physiognomic quali- of Wolfgang Metzger [23], Koffka’s convictions about aesthet- ties of the art object (Fig. 2). One person may acknowledge ics were not shared, assimilated nor cited by other prominent only those qualities that serve some intentional interest (Fig. Gestalt theorists, Arnheim included. While Arnheim regu- 2c)—conceived as a unilateral field directed toward the self. larly acknowledges the influence of Kohler and Wertheimer, As an example, Koffka imagines what a timber tradesman Koffka is hardly ever mentioned. Consequently, much of
Spehar and van Tonder, Koffka’s Aesthetic Gestalt 55
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_01020 by guest on 30 September 2021 what is now considered a Gestalt view in areas of art and TOWARD A RATIONAL UNDERSTANDING aesthetics is in fact quite different from the view pioneered OF AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE by Koffka in 1940. One of the greatest ideas in Koffka’s essay is that of a rational, Arnheim was “suspicious of an uncritical invocation of meaningful theory of aesthetics to replace oversimplified, physiognomic perception as the basis of the arts” [24]. In- stimulus-response and contingency-based models. Today, stead, Arnheim nominates semantically derived and cogni- the dominant approaches are heavily contextualized in terms tive, “metaphor-like processes that recognize the isomorphic of the semantic and historical context of a spectator [28] or, structural qualities of diverse sensory situations” [25]. The even more frequently, are motivated by neuroscience [29]. notion of physiognomic properties as independent from A greater awareness of Koffka’s ideas could potentially help learned associations, memory or higher-order mental func- growing disciplines such as neuroaesthetics steer clear from tion seems to have disappeared after Koffka and Werner. delivering stimulus-response lookup-tables that remain only Interestingly, James Gibson—Koffka’s colleague at Smith at a descriptive level of aesthetics. College—adopted physiognomy into the widely known the- Through this rational model, interpreted in terms of the ory of affordances [26]. Its success beyond the field of sci- self-object field, some apparently contradictory notions in ence is evidenced by the fact that most students in design are aesthetics—such as emotional attachment versus Kant’s “dis- familiar with the term affordance, even if its implied meaning interestedness”—the place of postmodern art, nonart, propa- is now vaguer than what Gibson intended. ganda, design, advertising and nature can be accommodated However, Gibson opted for an externalized theory of be- within one consistent, insightful framework. In this sense, havior in which the mapping of higher-order relationships in Koffka points the way toward a scientific approach that can the optic array to complex perceived qualities proved intrac- more deeply probe the power of aesthetic experience and table [27]. While the starting point for Gibson is a process of perhaps give us deeper insight into how and why aesthet- an environmental “information pick-up,” Koffka’s anchor is a ics often transcend the literality of mundane existence. His phenomenal object with all that transpires beyond it (includ- 1940 essay ends on this note—a prophetic glimpse at art and ing the environment) essentially unknown. science, given the untimely end to his career less than a year later, while Koffka was still merely 55.
References and Notes 9 Koffka [2] p. 185. 1 Kurt Koffka was born 18 March 1886 in Berlin. In 1908 Koffka com- 10 Koffka [2] p. 234. pleted his doctoral research on the perception of musical and visual 11 Koffka [2] p. 215. rhythms, and after brief stints at the universities of Freiburg and Wurzburg he went to the University of Frankfurt, where he met 12 Koffka [2] p. 214. Kohler and Wertheimer in 1910. Koffka was associated with the Uni- versity of Giessen 1911–1924. In 1924 he came to the United States, 13 Koffka [2] p. 201. working at Cornell 1924–1925, Chicago in the summer of 1925, Wis- 14 Heinz Werner, “On Physiognomic Perception,” in Gyorgy Kepes, The consin 1926–1927 and finally Smith College in Massachusetts, where New Landscape in Art and Science (Chicago: Paul Theobald and Co., he settled permanently in 1927. Source: M.G. Ash, Gestalt Psychology 1956). in German Culture, 1890–1967 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998) pp. 108–111. 15 Liliana Albertazzi, Immanent Realism: Introduction to Franz Bren- tano (Berlin–New York: Springer, 2006). 2 Kurt Koffka, “Problems in the Psychology of Art,” in Richard Bern- heimer et al., eds., ART: A Bryn Mawr Symposium. Bryn Mawr Notes 16 Werner [14]. and Monographs, Volume IX, 1940 (New York: Sentry Press; reissued 17 Koffka [2] p. 227. in 1972 by Oriole Editions) pp. 180–273. 18 Liliana Albertazzi, Gert van Tonder and Dhanraj Vishwanath, “In- 3 C.A. Berndtson, Ethics 51, No. 4, 498–498 (1941); T.M. Greene, Amer- troduction: Towards a Science of Qualities,” in Liliana Albertazzi, ican Journal of Archaeology 45, No. 2, 322–326 (1941); W.R. Hovey, Gert van Tonder and Dhanraj Vishwanath, eds., Perception beyond The Classical Weekly 34, No. 21, 246–247 (1941); H.W. Ianson and Inference (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010). K. Gilbert, Parnassus 13, No. 2, 75+87 (1941); E. Roditi, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 1, No. 1, 134 (1941); R.M. Ogden, The 19 R. Behrens, “Art, Design and Gestalt Theory,” Leonardo 31, No. 4, American Journal of Psychology 55, No. 2, 297–298 (1942); Listowel, 299–303 (1998). Philosophy 18, No. 69, 94 (1943); R. Sterba, Psychoanalytic Quarterly 14, No. 1, 124–126 (1945). 20 R. Arnheim, Toward a Psychology of Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966); R. Arnheim, Visual Thinking (Berkeley: Uni- 4 B. Gopnik, “Aesthetic Science and Artistic Knowledge,” in A.P. versity of California Press, 1969); R. Arnheim, Entropy and Art: An Shimamura and S.E. Palmer, eds., Aesthetic Science: Connecting Essay on Disorder and Order (Los Angeles: University of California Minds, Brains and Experience (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2012) Press, 1971); R. Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of pp. 129–161. the Visual Eye (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974; origi- nal work published 1954); R. Arnheim, The Power of the Center: A 5 W.R. Hovey, The Classical Weekly 34, No. 21, 246–247 (1941). Theory of Composition in the Visual Arts (Los Angeles: University of 6 Roditi [3]. California Press, 1988; original work published 1982). 7 Google Scholar analytics yield between three to five citations of 21 E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Picto- Koffka’s essay for each decade after the symposium. rial Representation (London: Phaidon, 1960); E.H. Gombrich, The Sense of Order: A Study of the Psychology of Decorative Art (Ithaca: 8 Gopnik [4]. Cornell Univ. Press, 1979); E.H. Gombrich, The Image & The Eye:
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_01020 by guest on 30 September 2021 Further Studies in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (London: 27 Gibson [26]. Phaidon, 1982). 28 N. Bullot and R. Reber, “The Artful Mind Meets Art History: Toward 22 K. Koffka,The Principles of Gestalt Psychology (New York: Harcourt, a Psycho-Historical Framework for the Science of Art Appreciation,” Brace and World, 1935). Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36, No. 2, 123–137 (2013). 23 W. Metzger, Gesetze des Sehens (Frankfurt a. M, 1936). Translated as 29 S. Zeki, Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain (Oxford: Laws of Seeing (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006). Oxford Univ. Press, 1999); S. Zeki, “The Neurology of Ambiguity,” Consciousness and Cognition 13, No. 1, 173–196 (2004); A. Chatterjee, 24 I. Verstegen, Arnheim, Gestalt and Art: A Psychological Theory (Vi- The Artistic Brain (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2014); G. Starr, enna: Springer-Verlag, 2005) p. 96. Feeling Beauty: The Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience (Cambridge: 25 Verstegen [24] p. 96. MIT Press, 2013). 26 J.J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979). Manuscript received 14 January 2014.
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