Critique Of Gestalt Aesthetics

The theory of Gestalt stemmed from mankind's exploration of the whole and was developed by Kant and Ehrenfels. As one of modern psychology branch, Gestalt theory has a close bearing on the philosophical background of the globe and political and cultural factors of Germany at that time., The theory was extensively employed in other academic fields after that. For example, Rudolf Arnheim and Leonard Meyer, massively resorted to Gestalt theory to study aesthetics and made it obtain important status in modern aesthetics. Gestalt is described as a process of development or a kind of result. As a process, it results from Kant, emphasizes initiative construction of transcendental form by perception; As a result, it is an organic compound whole or an objective counterpart of Gestaltqualitat. In the history of aesthetics theory, Gestalt has offered a instance which indicates the transition from modern culture to post-modern civilization. It does not raise subjectivity fanatically as modern culture, and differs from the elimination of the subjectivity in post-modern. Isomorphism bases on the identity of the emotion motive force and the power of universe, and the accumulation of cultures and individual experience are its humane foundation. Consequently, forces and fields which keep intimate connection with forces become major categories of Gestalt Aesthetics. The senses of forces in aesthetic courses are mainly psychological forces, which are aesthetic formations of universal forces or evolved forms. The most successful part of this theory is the study on perception, especially the visual perception field. The picture era in present is the supreme era of vision in fact. So the exploration of Gestalt theory is to research the " good tool " studying major culture. It has broken through the Hermeneutics. The ideas of Gestalt Aesthetics base on modern psychology, and the psychological foundation of artistic phenomenon makes it possess more advantages to explain arts. From the dynamic of artistic creation, managements of aesthetic information in creation to artistic enjoyment, all these fundamental questions can be expounded well, which provides Gestalt Aesthetics theoretical and practical supports. Gestalt Aesthetics attaches importance to the whole, the outcomes of certain structures, and in art they are shown as styles. So styles relate to Gestalt. Gestalt impressionablity and stability of style form dual characteristics. There are many defects when Gestalt Aesthetics is employed to explain artistic phenomenon, for its many basic theories arise from surmises without scientific evidences. But it has really offered some original opinions to us objectively, especially the methodology. Based on the human common foundation of universe, it has offered a comparatively perfect aesthetic system for exploring the secret of the artistic phenomenon. The greatest contribution of Gestalt Aesthetics embodies in the visual-audio field. In the era of audio-visual, its universality has been accepted. We appreciate Gestalt Aesthetics because of the following two causes: in the past and present it has provided a significant aesthetic system. In fact, it will be applied in wider fields in the future. Reviewing Gestalt Aesthetics, we try to search more effective support for its rationality.