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Home , Psychology of art, Rudolf Arnheim

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE , Design and Gestalt Theory

RoyR 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 Gestaltpsychology Czech-born psychologist named was seized the notes that comprise it are so wasfounded in 1910 by an idea when he saw at a railroad then a whole is not threeGerman psycholo- by flashing lights crossing independent, Max Kurt that resembled a theater He off the sum of its but a gists, Wertheimer, lights encircling marquee. got simply parts, Koffkaand Wolfgang K6hler. the train in Frankfurt am Main, where he bought a motion synergistic "whole effect," or ge- Theauthor discusses ge- picture toy called a "zoetrope" (Fig. 1). When a strip of pic- stalt [2]. Likewise, Wertheimer stalttheory's influence on tures is placed inside and viewed through the slits in a zoet- concluded, the effect of apparent modernart and design, de- scribesits resemblance to a succession of stationary pictures appear to be a single, movement is generated not so rope, Japanese-inspiredtheories moving picture. In his hotel room, Wertheimer made his own much by its individual elements as of aestheticsand finds evi- picture strips, consisting not of identifiable objects, but of by their dynamic interrelation. denceof a mutual,if lim- simple abstract lines, ranging from vertical to horizontal. By Wertheimer remained in ited,interest between the these elements, he was able to the condi- Frankfurt for more than 5 gestaltpsychologists and varying investigate years. certainartists. 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 of Movement" [3]. This was the first important event in the history of gestalt psy- a movement that from the work of Fig. 1. Engraving of a zoetrope, a motion picture toy invented in En- chology, grew subsequent 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 gradu- ate program, located in the abandoned Imperial Palace, and began a research journal called PsychologischeForschung (Psy- chological Investigation). For the most part, the students did not learn by attending lectures but by actually conducting re- search 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, , 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 came to in their immediate fr- power 1933, among 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

This content downloaded on Wed, 30 Jan 2013 17:15:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions sented with discarded materials (wire mesh, cardboard, newspapers, match- boxes, phonograph needles and razor blades) and instructed to basteln-to im- provise or "rig up" something. It is said that this method was influenced by Friedrich Froebel's pedagogy of "educa- tion through play" (in part because Johannes Itten, who started the founda- tions 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 vari- ety of configurations [11]. This is also surprisingly similar to ge- stalt 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 the "laws" that the In by subverting gestalt psychologists postulated. high-similarity, using seemingly inappropriate materi- or and their are so similar as to be in- blending, camouflage, objects surroundings nearly als. In one, for the was In or as in this the continu- example, subject distinguishable. high-difference, dazzle, camouflage, example, shown a table with a of common ity of a shape is interrupted by a surface design of unrelated, contrasting elements. (Photo variety items on a nail and courtesy of National Archives and Record Service) it, including cord, 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 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 of during 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 on scientifically in 1839 by a French chem- Fig. 3. Ryan McAdam, trademark for a hy- there were of a mutual interest be- ist, Michel-Eugene Chevreul, who essen- pothetical restaurant called Dada Cafe signs The tween the two In for found that a color to (1996). gestalt psychologists described disciplines. 1927, tially may appear the effects of the innate Rudolf often when moved similarity grouping, example, gestalt psychologist change, dramatically, tendency to constellate or to see as belong- from one to another. A Arnheim visited the Dessau Bauhaus, background ing together elements that look alike. An- then published an article in Die swatch of red, for example, may exhibit ticipating that tendency, the designer of Weltbiihnepraising the honesty and clar- one intensity on a green background, this logo has set up deliberate visual the recurrent use of circular ity of its building design [6]. Soon after, another on orange. As a result of this rhymes by Kurt Lewin commissioned Pe- there is no answer to shapes, s-shaped scallops and several thick- gestaltist phenomenon, easy nesses of line. ter Behrens (teacher of Bauhaus the question "What is the true appear- founder Walter Gropius) to design his ance 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, so his see figures (or swatches) alone, only dy- student Karl Duncker spoke instead. In namic "figure-ground" relationships the audience was the painter , [10]. 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 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

This content downloaded on Wed, 30 Jan 2013 17:15:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions constellate, or to see as "belonging to- Kepes, a Hungarian-born graphic de- gether" elements that look alike (called signer who taught with Moholy-Nagy at "similaritygrouping"), are close together the New Bauhaus in Chicago; and Art ("proximity grouping") or have struc- and Visual Perception:A Psychologyof the tural economy ("good continuation"). CreativeEye (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 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 of A French for can be as a "Z" appearance page layout. byname ge- airplanes perceived by is determined stalt is la de In- attention from to parts by wholes; (2) judg- theory psychologie laforme. switching figure ground. ments about or are due to its on flat Comparable phenomena can be found in similarity proximity advertently, emphasis the traditional Chinese yin-yangsymbol, 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 art. Japanese made to connect by one grouping ten- toward "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, size Lupton and J. Abbott Miller character- cord were assumed to be linked (as a ge- or direction) (Fig. 3) [14]. ize it in Design WritingResearch (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 ex- formal 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 '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 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 are lasting effect on art and design educa- composition of music, and entirely inde- enhanced by our innate tendencies to tion: Languageof Vision(1944) by Gy6rgy pendent of the representation of facts"

Fig. 5. LisaJames, (left) collage portrait of (1996). (right) Underlying this composition of typographic and pictorial ele- ments 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 com- positional grids are widely used in graphic design, especially in page layouts.

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This content downloaded on Wed, 30 Jan 2013 17:15:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions [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 GentleArt of Mak- Frank Lloyd Wright and 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 hautecouture 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 art, letter 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 and and 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 the music, less in literature, [the influences 1. For detailed information on Wertheimer's ap- movement and the formula- close of the nineteenth century, there of Japonisme and the Aesthetic Move- parent experiments 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 TheBook of Portraitsof Pioneersin Psychology(Washington, D.C., which was fueled a handful of Tea is still one of cherished and Hillsdale, NJ: American Psychological Associa- by popu- my 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, Ernest Fenollosa's on Chinese ideographs.... A book by Doubleday, 1993); Robert C. Bolles, The Story of notably A The Masters the Arthur Dow on is unknown to me Psychology: Thematic History (Pacific Grove, of Ukiyo-e(1896), composition CA: Brooks/Cole, 1993); and Mitchell G. Ash, Ge- Dow's Composition(1899), Denman W. even now" [23]. stalt Psychologyin German Culture, 1890-1967: Ho- lism and the U.K.: Ross's A Theoryof PureDesign (1906) and Wertheimer and Koffka died in the Questfor Objectivity(Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995). Kakuzo Okakura's TheBook of Tea(1906) early 1940s; Kohler in 1967. Today, ge- Published in more than 20 edi- stalt influence in the field of 2. Regarding Ehrenfels, see Ash [1] pp. 88ff; and [20]. theory's Fritz "Gestalt and is unobtrusive in the sense Heider, Theory: Early History tions between 1899 and the early 1940s, psychology Reminiscences," in , Julian Jaynes and Dow's book in particular had a far-reach- that its findings have all been absorbed JohnJ. Sullivan, eds., HistoricalConceptions of Psychol- (NewYork: 1973). ing effect on the formal training of art- by more recent viewpoints and because ogy Springer, 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 no- 4. There is a brief but vivid recollection of student There is a persuasive resemblance be- table exception is Arnheim, now in his life at the Psychological Institute in Rudolf Arnheim, Life in the Art a talk tween and the early 90s, who continues to write pro- "My World," pre- gestalt principles Japa- sented at the School of Art, Univ. of Michigan, Ann nese-inspired aesthetics that Dow and vocative essays on psychology and art Arbor, on 8 February 1984. The list of names pro- others For the and whose latest book on art, a collec- vided here was verified through my correspon- propagated. example, ge- dence with Arnheim. stalt emphasis on the dynamic interplay tion of essays titled TheSplit and theStruc- of and wholes had been antici- ture,was published in 1996 [24]. 5. The story of Kohler's courageous attempt to pre- parts serve the Institute is told in as as the third B.C. in In recent Arnheim has been Psychological Mary pated early century years, Henle, "One Man Against the Nazis-Wolfgang China by a passage in the Tao Te Ching outspoken in his criticism of some as- K6hler," AmericanPsychologist 33, No. 10, 939-944 that states that although a wheel is made pects of postmodern culture, as implied (1978). 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 that determines the overall form Rescue Art. There are in Weltbiihne(1927); translated by Arnheim as "The spokes of impairments Bauhaus in No. 60-61 of the wheel. The of re- current he that culti- Dessau,"Print 51, 6, (1997). phenomenon design, believes, 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 had moved there from Weimar the cedents in the and, in garity of taste, and a triviality of previous year. yin-yang symbol 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 to as interpreted by Arnheim, Kepes and 7. A photograph of Lewin's home, designed by forms as Donis A. Dondis of A Primer Behrens and Breuer, is found in Tilmann perceive incomplete complete) (author of Buddenseig, ed., Berlin 1900-1933: Architectureand are echoed in theJapanese emphasis on Visual Literacy),contending that it "iso- Design (New York and Berlin: Cooper-Hewitt Mu- seum and Mann elimination of the insignificant and in lates visual perception from linguistic Gebr. Verlag, 1987) p. 30. the ideas of implicitness and the active interpretation [and thereby] encour- 8. Regarding Duncker's Bauhaus lecture and of the viewer, because indifference to cultural Wertheimer's influence on Klee, see Marianne complicity genu- ages meaning." "Blue Paul in ine as Okakura To abstract is not in Teuber, Night by Klee," Mary Henle, beauty, explained, study composition 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.

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This content downloaded on Wed, 30 Jan 2013 17:15:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 10. Regarding simultaneous contrast, see Michel- 15. Teuber [8] p. 134. Denman Ross, A Theoryof PureDesign (Boston, MA: Eugene Chevreul, ThePrinciples of Harmonyand Con- Houghton Mifflin, 1907); and Kakuzo Okakura, 16. See Vision trast of Colors(New York: Garland, 1980); andJosef Gy6rgy Kepes, Language of (Chicago, The Book of Tea (Boston, MA: Fox, Duffield and IL: Paul New York: Albers, Interaction of Color (New Haven, CN: Yale Theobald, 1944; 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 and Rudolf Art Theobald, 1947); Arnheim, Japonisme is found in Kevin Nute, Frank Lloyd of his 11. For illustrated discussions Froebel and and Visual Perception:A Psychologyof the CreativeEye 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, In- 17. Ellen Lupton andJ. Abbott Miller, Design Writ- 22. See Behrens and Nute 98. venting Kindergarten(New York: Harry N. Abrams, ing Research:Writing on GraphicDesign (New York: [14] p. 14; [20] p. 1997). Princeton Architectural Press, 1996) p. 62. 23. Rudolf Arnheim, letter to the author dated 6 1995. 12. See Karl Duncker, "On Problem-Solving," in 18. Quoted in Wylie Sypher, Rococoto Cubismin Art July John F. Dashiell, ed., PsychologicalMonographs 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 19. in Robert Goldwater and Marco [8]. Quoted Treves, 25. Rudolf To the Rescue Art Artists on Art York: Arnheim, of (Berkeley, eds., (New Pantheon, 1945) p. CA: Univ. of California viii. 14. For the application of Wertheimer's grouping 347. Press, 1992) p. 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 Mastersof 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.

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