RESEARCH & REF.
Gestalt Psychology / Principles
Gestalt is a German for "unified whole".
Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler are three German psychologists who aimed to understand how humans typically gain meaningful perception from the chaotic stimuli around. They invented the first Gestalt Principles in 1920s. According to Kurt Koffka, the whole is other than the sum of the parts. The mind will inform what the eye sees by perceiving a series of individual elements as a whole.
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There are a list of principles and laws that the Gestalt Psychology mentioned.
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Related artwork with the use of Gestalt Psychology
When we take a look of those artwork with the use of Gestalt Psychology, there are may be a specific element or object at your first sight, you see it as a "whole". But when you take a closer and deeper look, you will find other element in it and taking part as an individual.
That's seems like an illusion and the photos have trick your mind. But actually it is just a kind of mechanism in your head that simplify what you have seen, and inform you as a whole.
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But sometimes, in some of the artwork or photos, it is hard to see a clear "whole". Those work may have a more complicated structure and orders, and
the positive and negative space may be confusing and chaotic.
Audiences may have to pay afford to process the photo or artwork that apply Gestalt psychology and solve the confusion and the unrecognised.
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I found this phenomenon quite interesting.
So I did more research on similar topics!
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M.C. ESCHER
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MC ESCHER is an artist famous in playing illusion, positive and negative space in his work. He used some of the Gestalt Laws in his painting, like similarities, good figure etc. Audiences may need extra attention to process the painting and some people found interested and indulge in that confusion moment.
MC ESCHER used simple but repeated pattern to create painting. You may see different groups of elements, but not as an individual object, that's because your brain helps you to group the similar elements together, and that's also what Gestalt Psychology talking about.
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When audience want to pay more attention on an individual element or object, they will have to step out of their mechanism of seeing the whole from the work and try to process or figure it out what is actually happening in the work. And this process is what brings visual excitement to the audience!
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More artworks / photos research
Through researching different artwork or photos with illusion properties, I found that sometimes a right perspective and angle may create a very stunning and confusing illusion. Also the meaning or story may be different when you look at the whole or the individual independently.
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When we look at some simple repeated pattern like the above examples, how amazing it is to be tricked by your brain, only with a little changes of the light and shadow or its arrangement. Our brain inform us with the most simple and not further processed message when we have our first sight on those photos.
You will see a "sphere-like" shape instead of many repeated dot; you will see a row of convex dots and a row of concave dots instead of seeing the just the different of its shadow part.
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