Art and Expression

Perception of expression distinguishes our cognitive activity in a pervasive, sig-

nificant and peculiar way, and manifests itself paradigmatically in the vast world
of artistic production.
Art and Expression examines the cognitive processes involved in artistic pro-
duction, aesthetic reception, understanding and enjoyment. Using a phenomeno-
logical theoretical and methodological framework developed by Rudolf Arnheim
and other important scholars interested in expressive media, Alberto Argenton
considers a wide range of artistic works, which span the whole arc of the history
of western graphic and pictorial art. Argenton analyses the representational strat-
egies of a dynamic and expressive character that can be reduced to basic aspects
of perception, like obliqueness, amodal completion and the bilateral function of
contour, giving new directions relative to the functioning of cognitive activity.
Art and Expression is a monument to the fruitful collaboration of art history
and psychology, and Argenton has taken great care to construct a meaningful
psychological approach to the arts based also on a knowledge of pictorial gen-
res that allows him to systematically situate the works under scrutiny. Art and
Expression is an essential resource for postgraduate researchers and scholars inter-
ested in visual perception, art and Gestalt psychology.

Alberto Argenton was professor of psychology of art at the University of Padova

until 2014. He passed away in 2015. He is recognised as one of the preeminent
scholars of the psychology of art in Italy. He authored numerous scientific papers
and books and was also a skilful artist, conducting his pictorial research with the
same rigor he adopted for his scientific work (www.albertoargenton.it).

Ian Verstegen is the associate director of Visual Studies at the University of

Pennsylvania, where his current teaching is focused on the image and its special
characteristics.
Art and Expression
Studies in the Psychology of Art

Written by Alberto Argenton

Edited by Ian Verstegen
First published 2019 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Laura Messina Argenton
Italian edition: Arte e espressione. Studi e ricerche di psicologia dell’arte.
© 2008 Il Poligrafo, Padua.
The right of Alberto Argenton to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by his heir, Laura Messina Argenton, in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Argenton, Alberto, author. | Verstegen, Ian, editor.
Title: Art and expression: studies in the psychology of art / written by
Alberto Argenton ; edited by Ian Verstegen.
Other titles: Arte e espressione. Italian
Description: New York : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical
references and indexes.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018057591| ISBN 9781138604100 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780429468704 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Art--Psychology.
Classification: LCC N71.A65313 2019 | DDC 700.1/9--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018057591

ISBN: 978-1-138-60410-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-46870-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Goudy Oldstyle Std

by Cenveo® Publisher Services
Contents

Editor’s introduction ix
Ian Verstegen

Introduction xvii

PART I
Expression and the dynamics of perception 1

1 Expression and expressive qualities 3

1.1 The study of expression in psychology  3
1.1.1 The deficiency disease  5
1.1.2 The phenomenological method  6
1.1.2.1 Inter-observation 10
1.2 For a definition of expression  13
1.2.1 Expression and physiognomic perception  15
1.2.2 The genetic and phenomenal primacy of
expressive qualities  18
1.2.3 Emotive determinism  21
1.2.4 The lexicon of expression  23
1.2.5 The essential traits of expression  25
1.2.6 Isomorphism and figurative thought  29
Notes 31
References 37
2 The dynamics of perception and expressive qualities 40
2.1 The construct of dynamics  40
2.2 Arnheim’s conception of the dynamics of visual perception  41
2.2.1 Vectors, forces, tensions and dynamics of perception  42
2.2.1.1 Physical forces and perceptual forces  44
2.2.2 Dynamics is the vehicle of expression  45
2.2.2.1 An example taken from art  47
vi  Contents
2.3 Dynamics, expression and graphic and pictorial language  51
2.3.1 A comparison of two paintings  54
2.4 The two ‘guiding values’ of art and behaviour  56
2.5 Representational strategies of the graphic-pictorial medium  59
Notes 61
References 64

PART II
Thematic studies  69

3 The swing effect: A little-studied perceptual phenomenon 71

3.1 Pictorial perception and line drawing  71
3.2 Contour rivalry  73
3.2.1 The visual tug-of-war  76
3.3 Perceptual conditions of the swing effect  77
3.3.1 Differences between the swing effect and
other cases of percept alternation  80
3.4 The dynamic aspects of the swing effect   83
3.5 The presence of the swing effect in graphic and
pictorial representation  84
3.5.1 Trademarks 85
3.5.2 Symbols 86
3.5.3 Decoration 87
3.5.4 Enamels and painting on glass  89
3.5.5 Cubism and Pablo Picasso  91
3.5.6 A unique case: Sano di Pietro  92
3.6 The nature and properties of the swing effect  94
Notes 96
References 97
4 Amodal completion and pictorial representation 99
4.1 Amodal completion   99
4.2 Perceptual completion  101
4.3 The structural conditions, laws and psychological
principles of completion  103
4.4 Amodal completion between seeing and thinking   106
4.5 Amodal completion, dynamics and expression  110
4.6 “Completion by frame”  116
4.7 Amodal completion and cognition  128
Notes 129
References 131
 Contents vii
5 The dynamics of obliqueness: Windmills and timepieces 134
5.1 Obliqueness in perception and in pictorial representation  134
5.1.1 The local use of obliqueness  138
5.2 Two studies on local obliqueness  141
5.3 The study of the pictorial representation of windmills  141
5.3.1 Windmills 142
5.3.2 The pictorial genre  143
5.3.3 Stylistic characterisation  145
5.3.4 The premises of the research  151
5.3.4.1 The windmill illusion  151
5.4 Hypothesis, aims and structure of the research  154
5.4.1 Research results  156
5.4.1.1 The 1400s, the 1500s and the Flemish
tradition 157
5.4.1.2 The 1600s and Dutch landscape
painting 162
5.4.1.3 The 1700s  168
5.4.1.4 The 1800s  169
5.4.1.5 The early 1900s: Piet Mondrian  172
5.5 Research into the pictorial representation of timepieces  179
5.5.1 Timepiece advertising  181
5.6 Hypothesis, aims and structure of the research  184
5.6.1 Research results  186
5.7 Obliqueness and visual thinking  194
Notes 196
References 201

Name index 205

Subject index 211
Editor’s introduction
Ian Verstegen

This book – Art and Expression – was first published in Italian in 2008 as Arte e
espressione: studi e ricerche di psicologia dell’arte1. It immediately represented the
best of the Gestalt psychological approach to art that is so strong and produc-
tive in Italy. Sadly, the book’s author, Alberto Argenton (1944–2015), became
terminally ill just a few months after his retirement from the Dipartimento di
Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione (Department of Developmental
Psychology and Socialisation) at the University of Padua, in 2014, thus depriving
us of many years of fruitful investigation in his post-university years.
Art and Expression can be considered Argenton’s masterpiece. A lengthy,
meticulous study of the perceptual contribution to the expressiveness of works
of visual art, it is his weightiest and most original scientific work. It investigates,
point by point, the ways in which basic perceptual mechanisms undergirding pic-
torial representation can convey dynamic expression. Not just a phenomenological
study, it also makes claims about the nature of expression and its centrality to
basic human cognition.
Who was Argenton? He was one of the most important psychologists of art
in Italy, in a field rich with contributors, including Manfredo Massironi and
Lucia Pizzo Russo. If Massironi (2002) wrote extensively on perception and art,
and Pizzo Russo (2005) wrote on conceptual issues and artistic development,
Argenton was the authority of art and cognition in its widest sense, the subject of
another important book (Argenton, 1996) that also already displays his profound
knowledge of the history of art.
Following closely – but never slavishly – one of his inspirations, Rudolf
Arnheim, Argenton demonstrates throughout Art and Expression how art reaches
the heights of aesthetic meaning and achievement by means of its perceptual
organisation and how one must link perceptual dynamics to expression to validly
make the latter a rigorous concept.
Argenton was born in Asmara, Eritrea, where his father, a doctor, had moved
from Italy to practice his profession. From a young age, he drew and painted,
which he continued to do throughout his life, pursuing his own personal language
and thereby attaining a highly distinctive style. He studied philosophy at the
University of Trieste, where Gaetano Kanizsa, Paolo Bozzi and Giovanni Bruno
Vicario – important names in Italian Gestalt psychology – were teaching, and
x  Editor’s introduction
completed his laurea, magna cum laude, under the supervision of Carmela Metelli
Di Lallo (the wife of the Gestalt oriented psychologist Fabio Metelli).
Metelli Di Lallo also taught at the University of Padua, and Argenton began
teaching there as her assistant in 1972. In 1976, Argenton joined the Facoltà di
Magistero (Faculty of Education) teaching within the degree course in psychol-
ogy. During the 1970s, he produced studies on art education, creativity, art ther-
apy and, often in collaboration with his wife Laura Messina, on conceptualisation
and sign-production and, years later, on the psychology of literature (Argenton &
Messina, 2000). In the 1980s, Argenton began to produce the work for which he
is best known, a series of rigorous studies based on phenomenological observation.
His formal teaching of the psychology of art began in 1990. In 1987, Argenton
was among the founders of the Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi Colore e Arte
(Interdepartmental Centre for the Study of Colour and Art), organising interdis-
ciplinary meetings and preparing publications.
At the conference in Milan organised by Augusto Garau in 1986, to honour
Rudolf Arnheim, Argenton presented a paper, “Lo stile e la sua discriminazione”
(“Style and Its Discrimination”) (Argenton, 1989), and met the elder psycholo-
gist of whose work he became a profound expert. In 2004, Argenton celebrated
the 100th birthday of Arnheim with an essay on aesthetic cognition (Argenton,
2004). In 2015, he again made a contribution about Arnheim to a themed issue of
Gestalt Theory (Argenton, 2015).
His Arte e cognizione (Art and Cognition, 1996) can with good reason be consid-
ered the first true textbook on the psychology of art in Italy. Not that there was a
shortage of reflections and research exploring the relationship between psychology
and art, especially by Manfredo Massironi and Lucia Pizzo Russo, but Argenton’s
work “nicely fulfils” a need for a systematic introduction to the discipline – and “this
constitutes a not insubstantial merit” (Pizzo Russo, 1996, p. X) – and also serves as
an “example of how to use a balanced contribution of both to convey a larger image
embracing science and art” (Arnheim, 1997, p. 88).
In this work, Argenton challenges the psychological study of the artistic phe-
nomenon in its totality and complexity “in light of the assumption that art is a
product and a manifestation of activity of the mind” – and thus of “a unified sys-
tem or apparatus, the cognition, through which man, distinguishing his behav-
iour from that of other organisms similar to him, became a social and cultural
being, Homo sapiens” (Argenton, 1996, pp. 38–39) – and that, if studied as such,
art is determinant for understanding the functioning of the mind itself.
The relationship between the spheres of cognition (intellectual, motivational
and affective-emotional), like that between perception and representation, con-
stituted a constant in the scientific inquiry of Argenton, as is also evident from his
earlier research on the aesthetic emotion. In this work, Argenton seeks to con-
nect research on aesthetic experience with burgeoning research on the emotions,
creating a more robust theory relating to human affect in general (Argenton,
1993a, 1993b, 1998).
Argenton took the profession of researcher very seriously. He was a meticulous
scholar, and only delivered works perfect in content and form (and on time!). In
 Editor’s introduction xi
the midst of this seriousness, he was capable of subtle and clever irony, making
his works a great pleasure to read. In December 2014, colleagues were pleased
to present to Argenton a Festschrift on his retirement, Ragionamenti percettivi
(Perceptual Reasoning) (Fossaluzza & Verstegen, 2014) that coincided with the
launch of his website, which contains many of his papers and paintings (http://
www.albertoargenton.it).
It is a great pleasure to bring Arte e espressione to English-speaking readers
as Art and Expression because Argenton only published a few essays in English
(Argenton, 2004, 2010, 2012, 2015; Argenton & Basile, 2003). Reading the book,
one recognises not only a cultured and profound thinker and appreciates his
approach and method to the slippery problem of expression but also is led step by
step through an innovative, perceptual-cognitive reading of artistic works. Self-
sufficient as the book is, the following comments are only intended to highlight
aspects of it that may not be immediately apparent.
First, Argenton takes for granted a theme from Gestalt psychology that men-
tal life is pervaded by expressive properties, which have “genetic and phenome-
nal primacy” in our experience of the world (Metzger, 1963, 70–71). This theme,
running from the founders of Gestalt psychology – Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang
Köhler and Kurt Koffka – to Rudolf Arnheim and Wolfgang Metzger, is a distinc-
tive worldview, which refuses to commit the stimulus error of identifying expres-
sive experience with physical measurements. Argenton has the advantage here
of Metzger’s thinking, particularly his Psychologie (1963), a general manual well-
known in Europe (in Italian translation since 1971), which has never been made
available in English2. Moreover, Argenton uses the rich theoretical and experi-
mental legacy of two outstanding representatives of Italian psychology – Paolo
Bozzi and Giovanni Vicario. In particular, the inter-observational method of
Bozzi (2019), now being made available in English, is largely unknown in English-
speaking psychology.
Secondly, Argenton has a strictly phenomenological approach to expression,
which is based, following Arnheim, directly on perceptual dynamics, as he
demonstrates in the studies enclosed in this book.
Each of Argenton’s research chapters is devoted to a single perceptual phenom-
enon – the “swing” effect (a particular case of contour rivalry), amodal comple-
tion, and the perception of obliquity – which he means as the carriers or bearers
of the emergent expressive qualities that each artwork has, giving to the study of
such phenomena a decidedly innovative slant.
Through these studies, he adds new data to the theoretical framework on the
subject. Thus, deepening the research on contour rivalry, Argenton discovers a
new particularity of this phenomenon that he names the “swing effect”. It consists
of a back-and-forth alternation of percept and occurs only with the satisfaction
of two indispensable conditions: the presence in a pattern of only two juxtaposed
forms, sharing only one portion of their contour or edge; the unaltered retention
of their own configurational identity. This effect is highly dynamic and is analysed
in different graphic and pictorial works, such as trademarks, symbols, decoration,
enamels, painting on glass and ancient and contemporary artworks.
xii  Editor’s introduction
Amodal completion – the completion of incompletely presented stimulus
objects by means of perceptual or intellectual supplementation – also gives rise
to expression. It manifests itself not only through the visual tension generated by
the superposition of forms – sometimes reaching an effect similar to stroboscopic
movement, as it happens in the clustering of halos in the medieval frescos by
Giusto de’ Menabuoi – but also through other different representational strat-
egies, for instance the “cut by frame” that produces a “completion by frame”, as
Argenton calls them.
Looking into the dynamism of obliquity used in artistic depiction of wind-
mills and timepieces, Argenton highlights how its “local use” is a widespread
representational strategy that produces a strong visual tension, giving an effect
of “movement”. Not coincidentally, in this study he resolves the intriguing ques-
tion of why timepiece advertising representation follows almost always the same
iconographic scheme, called by him “about 10 past 10”3.
The result is that expression is demystified and the search for expression is
returned to the perceptual psychologist, further reinforcing the worldview that
artistic values are inherent in basic perception.
By anchoring expression in perception, it becomes clear that the perceptual
appearance of forms in pictorial representations is privileged for its ultimate
semantic importance. Echoing Arnheim’s discussion of the structural skeleton,
Argenton reprises the notion of “perceptual meaning” he had developed in Arte
e cognizione (1996) to stress that the meaning supplied by the perceptual form is
the most important, upon which more elaborated cultural meanings can be built.
If this is, in short, Argenton’s theoretical position, he brings a rigorous method
to test it scientifically. Art is a common repository of expression, and expression is
a product of perceptual and cognitive activity, therefore expression “distinguishes
our cognitive activity in a pervasive, significant and peculiar way, and manifests
itself paradigmatically in the vast world of artistic production” (this volume,
p. xvii). For this reason, art is not alien to the discovery of the above effects, but
precisely where the scientist must go to find them.
Argenton often gives due deference to Arnheim, but he operationalises aspects
of Arnheim’s thought in a way that make it, perhaps for the first time, subject to
strict experimentation. To begin with, each perceptual effect epitomises some
aspect of cognition as mentioned above; because they are each visual, they relate
specifically to visual thinking (Arnheim, 1969). As noted, the swing effect relates
to the mental oscillation of two co-present entities, amodal completion to visual
inference as well as to cognitive procedures establishing continuities, discontinu-
ities, combinations and contrasts among elements of perceptual reasoning, and
obliquity to a category for visually thinking the dynamics, “being in action.”
The main goal of the aforementioned studies, then, is to correlate the aims
of the artist – his representational intents4 or style – with the pictorial solutions
discovered: “examining certain representational strategies utilised by the artists
to reach specific dynamic and expressive effects with a dual end: to ascertain
the universal character and intentionality in the use of such strategies and the
correspondence between said effects and the visual cognitive categories to which
 Editor’s introduction xiii
their employment can be traced back.” The final aim is to obtain, through the
study of artistic works, “insights about the functioning of cognitive activity” (this
volume, p. xix, p. xx).
The approach used by Argenton is repertoire-based. Collecting a great num-
ber of images for each category of graphic-pictorial works and analysing them,
he is able to identify and classify occurrences of different features appearing
at different times. The method is phenomenological observation, privileging
inter-observation, pioneered by Bozzi (2019, ch. 10), which involves multiple
observers in the task to explore an ‘object’ negotiating an accurate and shared
description of the object itself. The goal and the related hypothesis of each
study – contour rivalry, amodal completion and obliqueness – find respectively
attainment and confirmation in the research results.
In the context of producing insights about pictorial art, Argenton makes some
important observations of which perceptual psychologists ought to be aware. In
fact, in discussing each phenomenon considered, he describes in detail the condi-
tions in which it occurs, that are essential for it to be perceived, tracing the main
steps of scientific inquiry of the matter at hand that justify its study in the world
of art, where it often appears in the clearest way.
Lastly, Art and Expression is a monument to the fruitful collaboration of art
history and psychology because Argenton has taken great care to construct a
meaningful psychological approach to the arts based also on a knowledge of pic-
torial genres that allows him to systematically situate the works under scrutiny.
Particular attention is devoted to explaining the art history behind windmill rep-
resentations, for example, to set the parameter of the psychological research. In
general, psychology and art history have not found proper ways to make their
findings amenable to each other (Verstegen, 2013). Argenton’s model ought to be
copied because he indicates clearly how artists’ representational intents are linked
to both certain psychological “rules” and certain historical-artistic conventions
or constraints.
When the decision was made to translate Arte e espressione into English, it was
judged that the whole book would be valuable. Only a chapter by Argenton and his
long-time collaborator Tamara Prest (Argenton & Prest, 2008) that put the model
to work by building an iconographic analysis has been omitted from the English-
language edition. It will be useful as a separate resource, especially to art historians.
The initial translation from Italian into English was undertaken by John
Hannon (MA, Universities of Cambridge and Bari). This very able translation
was the basis for the editing of the manuscript by myself and Laura Messina
Argenton. A few terms are noted in the text when the meaning is particular
or unique. While the English text was edited for readability, a choice was made
sometimes to retain the longer sentences of the author, so as to remain faithful to
Argenton’s thinking.
It is no exaggeration to say that this translation would not have come to fru-
ition without the efforts of Laura Messina Argenton, who should share editing
credits. It was her organisation and considerable effort to arrange for the transla-
tion, compile the illustrations and review together with me the work that allowed
xiv  Editor’s introduction
this edition to ever be published. A special thanks goes to Tamara Prest, whose
constant help for this project reflects her steadfast dedication to the author. This
book is presented to the English-language reading public in loving memory of
Alberto Argenton.

Notes
1. This Introduction makes use of a previous review of Argenton’s book (Verstegen,
2010) and an obituary of Argenton (Verstegen, 2015).
2. Apart from a few essays, only Metzger’s Laws of Vision (1936/2006) is available in
English.
3. This insight of Argenton is followed by some scholars in a recent short article with-
out, it seems, a due recognition of its paternity, even if they suggest the present book
as “Further Reading” (Macknik, Di Stasi & Martinez-Conde, 2013).
4. “Representational intents” is a rendering of the Italian “intenti rappresentativi”.
“Intents” in the plural is slightly unfamiliar in English but is used to capture Argen-
ton’s meaning of this important concept, which is used throughout the book.

References
Argenton, A. (1989). Il problema dello stile e della sua discriminazione. In A. Garau
(Ed.), Pensiero e visione in Rudolf Arnheim (pp. 11–21). Milan: Franco Angeli.
Argenton, A. (Ed.) (1993a). L’emozione estetica. Padua: Il Poligrafo.
Argenton, A. (1993b). Psicologia delle emozioni e emozione estetica. In A. Argenton
(Ed.), L’emozione estetica (pp. 156–188). Padua: Il Poligrafo.
Argenton, A. (1996). Arte e cognizione. Introduzione alla psicologia dell’arte. Milan: Raffaello
Cortina.
Argenton, A. (1998). Emozione estetica. In V. D’Urso & R. Trentin (Eds.), Introduzione
alla psicologia delle emozioni (pp. 188–194). Bari: Laterza.
Argenton, A. (2004). Aesthetic cognition: a tribute to Rudolf Arnheim. Gestalt Theory,
26(2), 128–133.
Argenton, A. (2008). Arte e espressione. Studi e ricerche di psicologia dell’arte. Padua: Il
Poligrafo.
Argenton, A. (2010). Convergences between Conservation, Restoration and Psychology
of Art. In P. Iazurlo & F .Valentini (Eds.), Conservation of Contemporary Art: Themes and
Issues. A Didactic Experience (pp. 31–40). Padua: Il Prato.
Argenton, A. (2012). The Hand, Touch and Vision. In A. Pluchinotta (Ed.), Just the Hand
in Modern and Contemporary Plastic Art (pp. 44–50). San Giovanni Lupatoto (VR):
Bortolazzi-Stei.
Argenton, A., & Basile, G. (2003). Restoration and the Psychology of Art: An Occasion
to Test Out Cesare Brandi’s “Theory of Restoration”. In G. Basile (Ed.), Restoration of
Scrovegni Chapel. Surveys, Project, Results (pp. 544–558). Geneva-Milan: Skira.
Argenton, A. (2015). Is Arnheim just a Formalist? Gestalt Theory, 37(3), 219–234.
Argenton, A., & Messina, L. (2000). L’enigma del mondo poetico. L’indagine sperimentale in
psicologia della letteratura. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri.
Argenton, A., & Prest, T. (2008). Escursioni iconografiche. In A. Argenton, Arte e espres-
sione. Studi e ricerche di psicologia dell’arte (pp. 255–289). Padua: Il Poligrafo.
Arnheim, R. (1969). Visual Thinking. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of
California Press.
 Editor’s introduction xv
Arnheim, R. (1997). Arte e cognizione: Introduzione alla psicologia dell’arte. By Alberto
Argenton. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 37(1), 87–88.
Bozzi, P. (2019). Paolo Bozzi’s Experimental Phenomenology. Ed. by I. Bianchi & R. Davies.
London: Routledge.
Fossaluzza, C. & Verstegen, I. (Eds.) (2014). Ragionamenti percettivi. Saggi in onore di Alberto
Argenton. Milan: Mimesis.
Macknik, S. L., Di Stasi, L. L., & Martinez-Conde, S. (2013). Perfectly timed advertising.
Scientific American Mind, 24(2), 23–25.
Massironi, M. (2002). The Psychology of Graphic Images. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Metzger, W. (1936/2006). Gesetze des sehens. Frankfurt: Kramer; Laws of Seeing, Trans. L.
Spillmann. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Metzger, W. (1963/1971). Psychologie. Darmstadt: Steinkopff; Ital. Trans. I fondamenti della
psicologia della Gestalt. Florence: Giunti Barbèra.
Pizzo Russo, L. (1996). Presentazione. In A. Argenton, Arte e cognizione. Introduzione alla
psicologia dell’arte (pp. IX–XVI). Milan: Raffaello Cortina.
Pizzo Russo, L. (2005). Le arti e la psicologia. Milan: Il Castoro.
Verstegen, I. (2010). Review of Alberto Argenton, Arte e Espressione. Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism, 68(2), 196–197.
Verstegen, I. (2013). Cognitive Iconology: When and How Psychology Explains Images.
Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.
Verstegen, I. (2015). Alberto Argenton (26.2.1944-23.5.2015). Gestalt Theory, 37(3),
337–340.
Alberto Argenton, Windmill for Laura, 5 August 2005, oil on canvas, 20 x 20 cm.
Collection: Laura Messina Argenton.
Introduction

There is a certain type of psychological experience that constantly and more

or less consciously accompanies our life and can be indicated by the locution
perception of expression. Perception of expression distinguishes our cognitive activ-
ity in a pervasive, significant and peculiar way, and manifests itself paradigmat-
ically in the vast world of artistic production. In the first part, this book treats
the phenomenon of expressiveness, its essence and how it can be investigated,
and the dynamics of perception by which it is determined; in the second part, it
presents some studies carried out into these themes in the context of pictorial
representation.
The field of study to which this work belongs is that of the psychology of art –
or arts, as some scholars prefer to call it – where, also through the analysis of
formal, semantic and functional aspects of works of art, research is engaged in
analysing and understanding the cognitive processes – motivational, intellectual
and affective – involved in artistic behaviour and aesthetic behaviour, that is to
say in the creation and the enjoyment1 of works of art.
The psychological study of art has always presented and continues to present
a variety of different perspectives, analogously to developments in the general
field of psychology; initially characterised by three main theoretical approaches –
psychoanalytical, Gestalt, and behavioural-neobehavioural – since the 1960s cogni-
tivists and more recently also neurobiologists have begun to show an interest in it2.
Of the approaches just mentioned, it is the Gestalt that orients this book, as I
believe it is the one that actually respects and optimally favours the achievement
of the ultimate aim of the psychology of art: to understand, as far as it is possible,
the functioning of the mind or of the cognitive processes that preside over the
functioning of the mind itself3, an aim shared with general psychology, in whose
realm the psychology of art has the epistemic right, and duty, of citizenship.
In reality, it is not entirely appropriate to call the chosen approach Gestalt,
even though the name can be theoretically and historically justified. Indeed, the
theoretical and methodological framework I will privilege is due prevalently to
the work of a solitary scholar, the psychologist Rudolf Arnheim4.
Arnheim studied within the Berlin school and completed his PhD in 1928,
with an experimental thesis precisely on visual expression, under the guidance of
Max Wertheimer (Arnheim, 1928), and for all his life as a scholar he remained
faithful to the theoretical principles of Gestalt psychology. While it is true that he
based his research on these principles, as well as on his extensive and up-to-date
xviii  Introduction
knowledge of the achievements being reached by cultural and scientific thought
in the 1900s, he went his own way, carrying out rich and innovative studies that,
to be honest, have not always been well known or given due recognition.
Arnheim has enjoyed great fame and is known above all as the author of
Art and Visual Perception, a book published in 1954, reprinted in a revised and
enlarged edition in 1974, translated in all the world, and read by a very wide
public interested for different reasons in the themes of artistic creation and aes-
thetic enjoyment; but his contribution goes well beyond what this book alone can
reveal, even though it is fundamental and paradigmatic as regards the psycholog-
ical characterisation of the visual arts. Arnheim’s studies do not, in fact, deal just
with painting, sculpture and architecture, but with almost all expressive media –
cinema, radio, literature, music, dance, photography – and also address various
practical aspects of the psychology of art, first of all in education.
The contribution that Arnheim made available, throughout his whole work,
to anyone wanting to understand its profound contents, represents the fruit of
impressive, original research for at least two reasons: firstly, because he conceived
and proposed a theory that delineates and illustrates the essential structural and
procedural bases of the mind’s functioning, a “theory of mind” without doubt
“alternative” to “those of little impact when behaviourism was at its height and,
today, to cognitivist theories” (Pizzo Russo, 2004, p. 139); secondly because this
theory was developed and demonstrated prevalently through the observation and
analysis of the most diverse ways in which art occurs, that is considering “the arts
as an object of study of cognitive processes” (Pizzo Russo, 2004, p. 138), and thus
putting into practice – and showing how this can be done – an appropriate psycho-
logical investigation of art which, “while contributing to the understanding of the
arts, can help to understand better scientific psychology” (Pizzo Russo, 2004, p. 9).
It is true that the framework of Arnheim’s theory is not easy to grasp, because
he never took the trouble to propose it in a single organic form5, but presents its
principles and concepts throughout his works wherever they are useful to intro-
duce, or comment upon, the accounts of his concrete observations; at times he
proposes more or less extensive parts of his theory in systematic treatments, as for
example in the volume Visual Thinking (Arnheim, 1969), dedicated to the illustra-
tion of the functioning of the “intelligence” of visual perception.
In the corpus of his theory – which, though not very organically explained,
was certainly conceived and developed with great internal coherence – Arnheim
contemplates and deals extensively with the phenomenon of expressiveness, trac-
ing its cause, the condition of its occurrence, to the dynamics of perception6, the
general and fundamental characteristic of the functioning of perception itself.
He was the only scholar, throughout the 20th century, who occupied himself with
these questions from a psychological point of view in a rigorous, in-depth way,
and for this reason, as well as for those already mentioned, his thought constitutes
a constant point of reference in this book.
The assumptions of Arnheim’s theory are taken up, in particular, in the first
and second chapters, making up the first part of the book, entitled Expression
and the dynamics of perception, which is devoted to theoretically delineating
 Introduction xix
the phenomenon of expression, reviewing the main research results, the most
appropriate methodology for investigating it in the artistic field and the essen-
tial interpretive lines that illustrate the reasons and conditions of its occurrence,
attributable to the dynamics of perception.
The second part of the text, titled Thematic studies, presents some investiga-
tions conducted in the field of graphic and pictorial production – which share
the aim of identifying and examining certain representational strategies utilised
by artists to reach specific dynamic and expressive effects – with a dual end: to
ascertain the universal character and intentionality in the use of such strategies
and the correspondence between said effects and the visual cognitive categories
to which their employment can be traced back.
The representational strategies analysed in these studies refer to three basic
thematic aspects of pictorial perception: the two-sided function of the contour or
edge, amodal completion, obliquity. These aspects in their turn refer to other cru-
cial problems, for example, in no particular order, the juxtaposition of forms, the
alternation and reversal of the percept, the function of the overlapping of forms
and of the ‘cut by frame’, the local use of obliquity and its ‘deviant’ nature, the
depiction of apparent movements, the relation between form and meaning and
between stylistic schemes and representational intents, etc.
The first study, illustrated in chapter 3, The swing effect: A little-studied
perceptual phenomenon, is focused on a specific way of exploiting, for dynamic
and expressive purposes, the sharing of the contour or edge of two juxtaposed
forms that generates a perceptual effect which, as far as I know, has not been
thoroughly studied. This phenomenon, which I have called the swing effect, is
described in relation to the particular representational conditions that create
it, and the equally peculiar perceptual characteristics through which it mani-
fests itself, identified with the observation of iconic material created ad hoc or
taken from the literature regarding visual perception or traced in the rich and
varied world of graphic or pictorial production: patterns of a symbolic, decora-
tive and commercial nature, examples from folk art, ancient and contemporary
artworks. The analysis of the configurational, semantic and functional aspects
of the images in which the swing effect is present suggests some interpreta-
tive hypotheses regarding the relationship between the representational strat-
egy through which it is realised and a corresponding type of visual cognitive
procedure.
The study presented in chapter 4, Amodal completion and pictorial representation,
is concerned with a phenomenon induced, in pictorial perception, by the rep-
resentation of overlapping. Amodal completion is considered to be a generator of
visual tension, which gives rise to many expressive effects, resulting in particular
from the incompleteness of the forms obtained with the interruption of the pic-
torial composition by the border or the frame of the composition itself. These
effects are illustrated with several examples related to the different representa-
tional strategies used to achieve them, including those employed by Giotto, which
a happy circumstance – the restoration of the frescoes of the Scrovegni Chapel in
Padua – allowed me to observe close-up. This study also gives indications about
xx  Introduction
the functioning of cognition and in particular about the mechanisms involved
in the perceptual integration of partially incomplete patterns, confirming the
primacy of perceptual over intellectual activity.
The research described in chapter 5, The dynamics of obliqueness: Windmills and
timepieces, explores, in the context of pictorial production, the widespread use of
oblique direction to maximise the dynamism and expressiveness of either a whole
composition or of individual forms depicted in it. In particular, the results of a
systematic observation of the modes and frequency of use of obliqueness in the
artistic representation of two mechanical artefacts – windmills and timepieces –
are presented, focusing on those depictions in which they are perceived in the
state of greatest dynamism, namely, in the best condition to appear as if they were
‘in motion’. The results of this research seem to prove the postulate that obliquity
is a superordinate category of visual thinking that plays a decisive and universal
role in the representation of visual dynamics.
I have already mentioned the theoretical assumptions that guided these stud-
ies: chiefly, the theories of Arnheim, but also a number of other findings obtained
within the psychology of perception. Each of the suggestions from which the
studies in question started, then turned into hypotheses, originated in the field of
perceptual phenomena. However, the aim of these studies was not only to verify
how works of art, through their form, confirm the existence of, and the interpre-
tation given to, specific perceptual phenomena, as much as the more ambitious
intent of adding new data to a theoretical framework that already consists of a
complex structure of concepts and explanatory or ontological principles.
Even though these studies vary in the scope of the topics examined, they all
share what should be the fundamental aim of any research into the psychology of
art: to obtain, through the study of prevalently artistic objects, insights about the
functioning of cognitive activity.
As regards the methodology, the procedure followed – imposed by the com-
plexity and the variety of objects examined – has been that of phenomenological
observation. This approach studies the structure, configuration and form of the
artistic image – the object under scrutiny – involving more observers of differing
expertise, with the aim of obtaining accurate descriptions and producing possible
interpretations of the object itself. Moreover, as observational method requires,
for every image examined the following data were collected: the historical, stylis-
tic, iconographic and iconological characterisation, in addition to more concrete
information, such as the technique and the materials used, the context where it
was set or meant to be located, and so on. However, this did not prevent observ-
ers, as again the method requires, to try to maintain in the observation of the
phenomenal object – in exploring and describing an image – a ‘spontaneous’ and
‘immediate’ attitude; namely, an attitude devoid of the influence of prejudice,
preconcepts or individual preferences that might derive from what one knows of
the object being observed.
The studies mentioned above were carried out over many years, during which
time I have accumulated many debts of gratitude that I now have to recognise,
thanking all those who have helped me in the work of collecting the iconic
 Introduction xxi
material by providing me with images that were of interest, allowing me to
inspect works from archives or museum storage, referring me to examples of phe-
nomena that I was studying, dispelling my doubts about art history, iconography
and iconology, as well as those who, with great patience, have read quite consid-
erable parts of this work or have discussed with me some of its contents, giving me
precise and precious advice and suggestions. My profound and sincere thanks go
to Laura Messina above all, and then to Davide Banzato, Giuseppe Basile, Tiziana
Biganti, Giuseppe Califano, Mariagrazia Celuzza, Giorgio Deganello, Leandro
Luigi Di Stasi, Paolo Fancelli, Gabriele Fattorini, Lauro Galzigna, Anna Maria
Guiducci, Caterina Limentani Virdis, Wieslawa Limont, Francesco Federico
Mancini, Andrea Nante, Paola Passalacqua, Carlo Roberto Petrini, Lucia Pizzo
Russo, Giuseppe Pucci, Daniele Rossi, Ingrid Scharmann, Adriana Schepis,
Susan Scott, Ian Verstegen, Giovanni Bruno Vicario, Nicolette Whitteridge,
Mario Zanforlin, Rosa Maria Zenobi.
Last but not least, I would like to thank in particular Tamara Prest, who has
helped me with intelligence and perseverance, giving me invaluable support in
the various phases of this work.

Notes
1. Ed. The term enjoyment or enjoy requires a clarification. Each translates “fruizione”
and “fruire” in the Italian version of this book. However, these Italian terms refer
not only to drawing pleasure or satisfaction from something, but also to the use
of something. In this sense, “fruizione” does not necessarily have only a positive
characterisation but can also be connoted in an opposite sense, giving rise to an
act of negative critical judgment, censure, disapproval, etc. On this proposal, see
Argenton (1996, pp. 274–275).
2. Even if this is not the proper place to make clarifications of this type, as concerns
the neurobiological approach to art, currently in fashion and held in high regard in
some sectors of the scientific community, it seems appropriate to call the reader’s
attention to the scientifically and epistemologically ingenuous claim that a com-
plete explanation of aesthetic behaviour – which is clearly still a long way off – can
be achieved through neurophysiological studies. I am specifically referring to the
surreptitious inferences drawn by Zeki (for example, 1999), the founder of a subject
he called neuroaesthetics, from his own research, which for other reasons contains
interesting suggestions. Even from the cognitivist side there is a growing attraction
for the view of the artistic phenomenon as filtered by recent discoveries in the neu-
rosciences. On this subject, see the revision that Solso (2003) made of his previous
work, published in 1994.
3. On this subject, see the text of my contribution (Argenton, 2005) at the conference
I recenti sviluppi della teoria della Gestalt in Italia (Recent Developments in Gestalt
Theory in Italy), organised in Padua by Mario Zanforlin, in February 2004.
4. Rudolf Arnheim was born in Berlin in 1904 and died in 2007 in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, in the USA, where he had been living since the 1940s and where he
had chosen to emigrate because of the Nazi race laws. Before going to the USA,
from 1933 when the Nazis came to power to 1938 when the fascist race laws were
promulgated, he lived in Rome, working largely in the field of cinema, learning Ital-
ian and making friends and acquaintances with intellectuals, artists and scholars.
After a stay in London, during which he worked as a translator for the BBC, in 1940
Arnheim moved to the USA, becoming an American citizen a few years later and
xxii  Introduction
undertaking an academic career during which he taught as professor of psychology
of art in American universities.
5. A worthy attempt to frame and explain in a coherent whole Arnheim’s theories
was made by Verstegen (2005), who dedicated many years to this with support from
Arnheim himself. Pizzo Russo (2004) published a collection of essays, written with
reference to the “core elements of Arnheim’s theory”, that is useful to understand in
depth its essential features, scope and position within psychology and the psychol-
ogy of art.
6. At the centre of Verstegen’s (2005) presentation of Arnheim’s theory, he rightly
placed the construct of dynamics, which indicates a general and essential feature of
the functioning of perception and, therefore, of the functioning of cognitive activ-
ity, of which perception constitutes the fundamental process.

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