GENERAL NOTE Koffka’s Aesthetic Gestalt B RAN KA SPEHAR AND GERT J. VA N TONDER A neglected theory of aesthetics by the eminent Gestaltist Kurt of a path toward a more holistic theory of aesthetic appre- Koffka is reviewed with the hope that it will spark new interest ciation. His theory is of considerable potential relevance for in the Gestalt contribution to art. Koffka’s particular emphasis on modern science. For this reason we consider it timely and the art object, its perceptual qualities and its relation with the ABSTRACT intentional self holds the potential for advancing scientific theories relevant to revisit the origins and essence of Koffka’s intel- of aesthetic experience. lectual legacy. SHORTCOMINGS IN THEORIES In 1940, Kurt Koffka [1]—a leading German Gestalt psychol- OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ART ogist tenured at Smith College, Northampton—participated Koffka pointed out several significant problems in the theo- at the Bryn Mawr Art Symposium held near Philadelphia ries of the psychology of art of the time, some of which still [2]. The occasion brought together multidisciplinary con- plague current attempts to unite art, psychology and science tributions from an art historian (Richard Bernheimer), an [8]. Psychologists still persisted in getting “aesthetic results archaeologist (Rhys Carpenter), a philosopher (Milton C. by lifting lines, colors, sounds, rhythms, words out of all con- Nahm) and a psychologist (Koffka himself). Visionary for texts.” He asserts that “psychology has to some extent failed its time, the symposium departed from narrow departmental to understand the problems involved” [9]. specialization in approaches to art and was reviewed and well The first problem was that the dominant theories of the received in a wide array of journals [3]. time divided their focus onto the psychology of either the Aware that the diverse aspects of aesthetic experience— artist or the the spectator, thus neglecting the work of art. from perspectives of culture, ecology, evolution, emotion, To Koffka, the psychology of the artwork itself is of great psychology, knowledge, physiology—have historically been importance: What requires explanation is not the physical treated largely in isolation, Koffka accepted the invita- work of art but the experienced art object, the perceptually tion to the symposium with great reluctance, considering presented artwork. it a daunting task. Indeed, numerous subsequent attempts Second, the wide range of individual responses to art was toward a multidisciplinary theory of art have likewise taken as evidence that aesthetics could not be a domain of struggled with the problems already foreshadowed at this objective investigation, reinforcing the idea that the work of symposium [4]. art was irrelevant to a serious theory of aesthetic experience. Koffka’s presentation was singled out as the most impor- And third, the dominant approaches in the 1940s were tant contribution for advancing a scientific theory of art [5,6]. preoccupied with the place and nature of emotion in both Even so, Koffka’s essay remained dormant and largely for- the production and enjoyment of a work of art. Koffka con- gotten after publication [7], partly due to the wider turmoil sidered this the most serious of all the problems he identified generated by World War II. A closer look at the essay’s ideas in the psychology of art; he noted: reveal not only scrutiny of the shortcomings in the dominant theories of art appreciation at the time but also articulation As long as one tries to study these emotions purely as states of or events in the self, one will understand neither these emotions nor their relation to art [10]. Branka Spehar (educator), School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia. Email: <[email protected]>. Typically, the aesthetic experience was considered a com- Gert J. van Tonder (independent researcher), Reki-An Pavilion, Kamigamo plex emotion; this notion played a central role in the so- Minamiojicho, Kyoto, 603-8074, Japan. called empathy-based theories of art, which insist that the See <www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/leon/50/1> for supplemental files associated with this issue. aesthetic experience results from spectators projecting their ©2017 ISAST doi:10.1162/LEON_a_01020 LEONARDO, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 53–57, 2017 53 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_01020 by guest on 30 September 2021 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