Schlesinger, Antonia (2025) Gestalt-ung: A Comparative Analysis of Holistic Thought in Weimar Germany. Master thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
This thesis examines the conceptual parallels and divergences between the Berlin school of Gestalt psychology and Gestaltung at Bauhaus, situating both within the intellectual and cultural climate of the Weimar Republic. While Gestalt psychology, as developed by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka, emerged as a scientific protest against atomistic and associationist models of the mind, Bauhaus Gestaltung sought to unify art, and craft though holistic principles of form and perception. Rather than tracing direct lines of influence, this study investigates how both movements responded to shared critiques of fragmentation in modern science and culture. Through case studies of Johannes Itten’s Vorkurs and Wassily Kandinsky’s Composition VII, read alongside Gestalt theoretical writings, the thesis highlights how both traditions emphasized relational structure, perceptual unity, and the reorganization of elements into meaningful wholes. The analysis demonstrates that Gestalt psychology and Bauhaus art, and pedagogy were parallel projects, shaped by a common intellectual ethos but oriented toward different institutional aims: one toward empirical psychology, the other toward artistic and pedagogical practice. By grounding the comparison in close readings of primary sources from both disciplines, this thesis contributes to existing literature by offering a systematic, text-based account of their conceptual resonances and by situating them within the broader discourse on holism in Weimar culture.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Mulberger Rogele, A.C. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | Theory and History of Psychology [Master Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 16 Sep 2025 13:59 |
| Last Modified: | 16 Sep 2025 13:59 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5922 |
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