Research of Gestalt Theory - a 101 guide

A brief explanation of what is meant by Gesthalt, (a word often used in contemporary art to describe
"the whole" painting or image or art object in terms of sensory perceptions and feelings of it)...

The theoretical principles are the following:

• Principle of Totality—The conscious experience must be considered globally (by taking into account all the physical and mental aspects of the individual or object simultaneously) because the nature of the mind demands that each component be considered as part of a system of dynamic relationships.
• Principle of psychophysical isomorphism – A correlation exists between conscious experience and cerebral activity. i.e. what we perceive and think, and what we see (or/and touch, smell, taste, hear).

Based on the principles above the following methodological principles are defined:

• Phenomenon experimental analysis—In relation to the Totality Principle any psychological research should take phenomena as a starting point and not be solely focused on sensory qualities.
• Biotic experiment—The school of gestalt established a need to conduct real experiments that sharply contrasted with and opposed classic laboratory experiments.  This is sometimes known as "in-vivo"... (i.e. in a 'real' situation,  from the Latin, literally "In the living body"),  OR in-natura, meaning in nature, in natural environments;  as opposed to in-vitro (i.e. As an experiment in a laboratory environment, with test tubes, sensors, like as in a dead laboratory animal etc... From Latin to mean "In the Glass", or under a microscope).  In Gestalt psychology, this signified experimenting in natural situations, developed in real conditions, in which it would be possible to reproduce, with higher fidelity, what would be habitual for a subject.

(Taken from Lecture notes, - William Ray Woodward, Robert Sonné Cohen – World views and scientific discipline formation: science studies in the German Democratic Republic : papers from a German-American summer institute, 1988 - Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology#cite_note-8 )

In addition to the lecture last week by Dr Juliet McD, concerning form and ground, I've taken some references in contemporary art from research into Paul Klee, by Deanna Petherbridge, in her book The Primacy of Drawing. 2010, Yale University Press, New Haven & London.  In it (Page 204,  Paul Klee and holistic Gestalt), she quotes Klee as saying.  ...

"The primordial movement, the agent, is a point that sets itself in motion (genesis of form),.  A line comes into being.  The most highly charged line is the most authentic line because it is the most active.  In all these examples, the principles and active line develops freely.  It goes out for a walk, so to speak, aimlessly for the sake of the walk.

Paul Klee went on to say "Gesthalt is in a manner of speaking, form with an undercurrent of living functions.  The function made of functions, so to speak.  The functions are purely spiritual.  And need for expression underlies the… every expression of function must be cogently grounded. There will be a close bond between beginning, middle, and end… There will be room for nothing doubtful, since they fit so rightly."  

Petherbridge goes on to say,

For Klee like Rodchenco, line was the proto-genesis of form, but he developed a more much more sophisticated analysis of linear actions in his "contributions to the theory of pictorial form", the publication of lecture notes, written during his years of teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau.