Gestalt psychology is a term derived from the German term ‘gestalten’ or organised wholes. The theory of perception enjoyed a time as the most popular theory in the early twentieth century. Perceptual psychology aims to find out how we attach and derive meaningful symbols from the simple electrical impulses of our brains, which create our visual systems. The primary principal of Gestalt psychology is that the larger picture will be seen before its smaller component parts. This has particular relevance for the visual arts, and is effectively the psychological equivalent of the old quote ‘the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.’ Continue reading →