Cloonan, Fenomenología de La Fisiognomia
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Transcript of Cloonan, Fenomenología de La Fisiognomia
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Thomas F. Cloonan
Marymount College of Fordham University
Face Value: The Phenomenology of Physiognomy
ABSTRACT
The concern of this article is to establish the difference betwee
physiognomy and expression as it may be understood phenom
enologically. The work of Merleau-Ponty founds the phenome
nological appreciation of physiognomy, and Gestalt psychologica
studies on perceptual organization elaborate the specifics of phys
iognomic structure despite the naturalist assumptions of tha
school of psychology. Physiognomy is the organized structura
specification of expression in the phenomenon that presents itselThis view is an alternative to conventional topical but nonthe
matic considerations on physiognomy (e.g., “face value,” visua
inspection, physiognomy in language perception, and facial expres
siveness). Art therapy with its use of various media is a venue i
which the physiognomy of clients’ art products is a display of inte
gralness or pathology. It is an immediate access to the world o
the patient.The work of the Gestalt psychologist Rudolf Arnheim
and of the art therapist Mala Betensky are associated with the
phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty in order to advance under
standing of the significance of physiognomy in experience, i
behavior, and in art therapy.
The study of that which presents itself to us—the
phenomenon, cannot ignore how perceptually the phe
nomenon is present to us. A word that serves themanner of presentation is physiognomy. It is the sug
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announces the significance of that which is present to us, and that announce
ment communicates wholeness or pathology. This thought derives from the
philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The visual psychology of Rudol
Arnheim, the Gestalt psychologist of art, hobbled by the assumptions of nat
uralism as Merleau-Ponty points out, nevertheless presents a discussion o
structure that allows an elaboration of the perceptual experience of physiognomy within the phenomenological understanding of it.
As it is understood and described here, physiognomy is the specification o
expression. It is the structural specification of the phenomenon in its expres
siveness. Another way of saying it is that expressiveness characterizes all o
nature both human and physical, and that physiognomy reflects the struc
tural differentiation of expressiveness in the instantiations of nature. In thiscontext, “expression” (or “expressiveness,” the words are used interchange
ably in this article) is a general character of all phenomenal reality. This posi
tion emerges from reflection both on the thoughts of Merleau-Ponty in his
phenomenological review of expressiveness and physiognomy, and also on
the thoughts of Arnheim in his Gestaltist understanding of visual experience
The institution of a distinction between expressiveness and physiognomysuggested here is in the service of phenomenological research on perception
and it precludes the conflation of expression and physiognomy.
Research Literature
Review of mainstream psychological literature indicates the marginal position of physiognomy. Physiognomy receives an economy of attention in the
context of “face value,” “visual inspection,” and some “physiognomy” stud
ies in research literature (specifically, experimental studies done on the phys
iognomy of the sound and lettering of words and on facial expressions)
Commentary on these studies gives something of a background against which
a phenomenology of physiognomy offers itself.
Brief review of these topics constitutes the first part of this article. The sec
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itly refers to phenomenology and to Gestalt psychology in consideration of
pathology as clients reflect it in their art products.
Face Value
One level in which contemporary psychology attends to physiognomy is thaof “face value” of evidence or results in experimental psychology. At this
level, the issue of physiognomy may be discussed in a seemingly solely con
ceptual and statistical context. Even so, the stakes are high. Examination of
“face value” evidence extends discussion of physiognomy to more “lived,”
concrete levels.
Physiognomy is the referent of “face value” in research psychology. In theworld of today’s psychology, “face value” suggests solely the apparent value
or validity of that to which it is referring, which may be a finding, proposed
variable, symptom, behavior, communication, word—or, to press the lan
guage of the phrase, the physiognomy of a face. “On the face of it” is an
alternative expression for this apparent value or validity. The connotation of
“face value” is that there is a value underneath the face of the phenomenon
before one, which may or may not be in agreement with the face value. In
other words, one might address the issue by saying that the phenomenon’s
physiognomy may be inconstant, possibly insubstantial, or perhaps decep
tive. It might even be truly reflective of the larger reality it is specifically
expressing, which occurrence, however, requires demonstration.
At best, the “face” value is presumptive until established facts make a conclusive statement about the phenomenon in question. For example, the phrase
“prima facie evidence” in law is an example of this. The Latin translates as
“at first face” in the sense of “at first sight.” At worst, the attribution of “face
value” to anything is an assessment of underlying possible instability of value
and validity, or even absence thereof. In response to the latter perspective’s
uncertainty, we have, for example, the historical statistical determination o
the significance of difference between the mean scores of two or more groupsth h th li ti f t ti ti l f l H t b t t
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experimental psychology, statistical procedure establishes a predictive valid
ity based on probability, and they thereby secure a credible value to the sim
ple difference, whether it is significant or non-significant. (Never mind the
considerable discussion and severe criticism of the relevance of “null hypoth
esis significance testing” [NHST] this past half century! See the 1994 publi
cation of Jacob Cohen.)
In the literature on experimental research, psychologists consider “face value,”
here understood as an extended sense of physiognomy, as nugatory in con
sequence. Its acceptance is conditional upon the character of that behind it o
under it. “Appearances are deceiving.” All these considerations, need it be
said, hedge the heuristics of “face value” findings.
Visual Inspection
Recently, a counter position to the above has developed within mainstream
psychology. In the third edition of Stevens’ Handbook of Experimental Psychology
Norman H. Anderson (2002) says,
the first rule of data analysis is to look at the data. Sometimes no more isneeded. . . . Visual inspection is also sensitive to pattern or trend, which
may well be obscured in standard statistical techniques. . . . Statistics texts
and courses should place heavy emphasis on developing skills of visual
inspection. (p. 304)
These statements astonish those of us educated in statistics-driven experi
mental design. Anderson, it seems, dissents from the received wisdom omodern psychology research. In reference to the case of a behavior modification
experiment, Anderson goes further to state that
. . . visual inspection may suffice as a test of significance. . . . the reliability
of the difference is clear to visual inspection. To include a formal significance
test not only is unnecessary clutter but also would betray a weak under-
standing of the nature of science.
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The attitude informing these thoughts is provocative. Statistics are a too
appropriate to data and design that require them. It is the absence of neces-
sity of statistics in certain situations, Anderson is affirming, that has become
an issue. The reader of Anderson’s article, then, wonders: Why do gratuitous
inclusions of statistical procedures occur in psychological research? Is it pos
sible that the “look”—let us say “physiognomy”—of an article in a psychological journal is enhanced by the garnish of statistics?
Anderson says further,
Visual inspection is always necessary and sometimes sufficient. It is unsci-
entific, not to say unseemly, to muddle one’s results with statistical busy-
work. But more objective methods are sometimes essential to assess reliabilityof data patterns. Visual inspection and ANOVA are complementary tools.
Both help one to understand the data. (p. 333)
Anderson is not prioritizing visual inspection over statistical analysis. Much
less is he endorsing the retirement of statistics in favor solely of visual inspec
tion. The context of his discussion is his chapter on “methodology and sta-
tistics in single-subject experiments” (2002, pp. 301-337) in Stevens’ HandbookThe sense of Anderson’s comments is reasonableness and fidelity to the spiri
of the scientific attitude. One might even go so far as to say that the instruc
tion on “visual inspection” is a tacit acknowledgment of physiognomy’s value
From the broader extrastatistical horizon of experimental research, this is no
just an acknowledgement of “face value,” the “face value” that a decontex-
tualized statistics assumes is suspect and in need of the processing that sta
tistical applications alone allegedly can bring. It is an explicit advocacy ofthat first, open-minded observation and examination of the evidence that is
the stamp of scientific inquiry.
“At first sight” may yield the information that the researcher is prospecting
It is understood, of course, that “first sight”—visual inspection as Anderson
understands it here—is not a glance; rather, it is a “hard look.” As much as
visual inspection may prospect the look or physiognomy of the data in ah t d h h d th “h d l k” t th li t’ f
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replacement of experimental assessment and clinical diagnosis procedures
the inspection of physiognomy ought to be a conditio sine qua non for exper
imental inquiry as much as it is for clinical intake and dialogue.
Physiognomy Studies
With respect to the lived and concrete level of physiognomy, a search o
mainstream literature going back fifty years locates several interesting stud
ies on physiognomy. For example, Krech and Crutchfield (1958) in their tex
refer to
physiognomic properties, the term being derived from the expressive quali-
ties exhibited on the face—the physiognomy—of a person. It is to be empha-sized that such perceptual properties—e.g., “gracefulness” of the elm tree—are
seen immediately there in the object just as much as size and shape are.
(p. 27)
The first sentence in the quotation above alludes to a relationship between
expression or expressiveness and physiognomy. On one hand, “physiognomic
properties” are considered derivative of the expressiveness of the face; on theother hand, “physiognomy” is made synonymous to “expressive qualities.”
The latter of the two parts of the statement reflects the general ambiguity on
distinction between expression and physiognomy. The first part approximate
to the position offered here; namely, that physiognomy is a specification o
expression. From phenomenological and Gestalt psychological consideration
to be presented further on, “gracefulness” in the second sentence of the quo
tation would be understood as a certain kind of organization of line, size
shape, and other formal components of the visual phenomenon.
The very last phrase from the Krech and Crutchfield quotation, “are seen
immediately there in the object just as much as size and shape are,” is con
cession to the perceptual experience whose dynamic does not require infer
ential processes in order to come to closure. The phenomenologist is comfortablewith this language.
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matching synonym-antonym pairs in the English language with pairs in the
Chinese, Czech, and Hindi languages. The results were greater than chance
in recognizing the words’ meanings in the foreign languages which were o
fundamental dimensions of living daily life (sharp-blunt, bright-dark, bad
good, soft-hard, sweet-sour). Krech and Crutchfield (1958) comment on the
basis of the results: “we must conclude that common physiognomic qualitiesaccount for only some of the relationship of meanings to sounds of words”
(p. 30). The conclusion is cautious. Its conservative language at the same time
is acknowledging instances in which physiognomy accesses to meaning
through the sounds of words.
The second study cited is by Block (1957). In his investigation, Block asked
his participants to characterize each of 15 emotions with respect to a set of20 pairs of physiognomic terms (e.g., rough, smooth, wet, soft, red, full). “In
general, there was found to be rather high agreement in the way the subjects
characterized each of the different emotions” (p. 232). The preconceptualiza-
tion of physiognomic characterizations available for participants to apply
to emotions precludes a truly valid participant-defined and participant
understood assignment of physiognomic characterizations. Nevertheless, thefindings are a suggestion that there is immediate experience of physiognomic
character of emotions, and that is a stimulus for the design of a more valid
study.
There are further historical and current studies on physiognomy, for exam
ple on facial physiognomy. The studies referred to above, it is to be empha-
sized, are only a part of the total.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Merleau-Ponty (1962) does not have any specific section addressing phys-
iognomy in Phenomenology of Perception. Physiognomy, nevertheless, receives
in that work a number of elemental references that establish it as a centrafeature of the subjectivity-world nexus that is the heart of Merleau-Ponty’s
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through the object, and, by the object, of the subject’s intentions—a process
which is physiognomic perception—arranges round the subject a world which
speaks to him of himself, and gives his own thoughts their place in the
world. (p. 132, italics added)
Merleau-Ponty explicitly says “physiognomic perception.” He describes it aa process of “drawing together, by the subject, of the meaning diffused through
the object, and, by the object of the subject’s intentions.” “Meaning” issue
from the specification of the object’s physiognomy—it is physiognomic
Physiognomy is a specification of the expression (or expressiveness) that is
the general property of the object and of all objects and of all subjectivity
Merleau-Ponty continues that
a face, a signature, a form of behaviour cease to be mere “visual data” whose
psychological meaning is to be sought in our inner experience, and the men-
tal life of others becomes an immediate object, a whole charged with imma-
nent meaning. . . . henceforth the immediate is no longer the impression,
the object which is one with the subject, but the meaning, the structure, the
spontaneous arrangement of parts. (pp. 57-58)
Merleau-Ponty refers to “a face.” That and the other references are the imme
diacy of the phenomenon. Physiognomy is “a whole charged with immanen
meaning.” It is not an impressionistic or capricious ripple on the surface o
something or someone. Physiognomy is neither impression nor chance
Physiognomy is both an announcement and the presence of that which is
announcing itself.
The referent for “a face, a signature, a form of behaviour” is the human being
Physiognomy privileges human beings. Merleau-Ponty says, “the tacit the
sis of perception is that . . . monadic and intersubjective experience is on
unbroken text . . .” (p. 54). That is, we are able to read each other because we
all belong to the tissue of subjectivity. Physiognomy is the gesture of subjec
tivity and one reads it whether immediately or effortly, but not through the
labor of inference or forms of rationale. Exceptions are occasional, anomalouexercises in analysis or situations in which there is organic or psychologica
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Everything as well as everyone is physiognomic. Meaning, clear or obscure
is right there before us. The presence of ambiguity in the phenomenon does
not collapse the phenomenon into meaninglessness. A perception is an act o
intimacy and physiognomy is its agent.
Merleau-Ponty makes it very clear that for him the act on the spectator’s partthat recaptures the sense of gestures is not a cognitive operation. (Gesture is
understood here as physiognomy in which there inheres motility as a salient
feature.) The understanding that comes from perception of a phenomenon’s
physiognomy (or gesture) is not of the cognitive order.
The whole difficulty is to conceive this act (act on the spectator’s part that
recaptures the sense of gestures) clearly without confusing it with a cogni-tive operation. The communication or comprehension of gestures comes
about through the reciprocity of my intentions and the gestures of others,
of my gestures and intentions discernible in the conduct of other people. It
is as if the other person’s intention inhabited my body and mine his. The
gesture which I witness outlines an intentional object. This object is gen-
uinely present and fully comprehended when the powers of my body adjust
themselves to it and overlap it. (p. 185)
The above references establish the importance of physiognomy in Merleau
Ponty’s work. It is the phenomenological standard in relation to which
Arnheim’s work, as well as Mala Betensky’s work, may be examined.
Rudolf Arnheim
Because of its commitment to perceptual studies, especially visual percep
tual studies, and because of its premises about perceptual engagement (e.g.
the whole is greater than the sum of its parts), Gestalt psychology is notably
congruent to the study of art. In an affirmation of the sympathy between
Gestalt theory and art, Rudolf Arnheim (1974) comments, “art pervades the
writings of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka” (p. 5). Amongthe adherents of the Gestalt psychology school Rudolf Arnheim himself is
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Despite assumptions that are disparate to phenomenology, Arnheim and
Gestalt psychology in general have presented empirical studies and theo
retical considerations that specifically address physiognomy and that are
sympathetic and available to contextualization in the phenomenology o
Merleau-Ponty. Two of Merleau-Ponty’s major works, The Structure of Behavio
(1963) and Phenomenology of Perception (1962), are replete with references toGestalt psychology. Arnheim and Gestalt psychology studies and considera
tions enable us to appreciate how physiognomy discloses the integral state
or the pathological state of that which is present to us.
“That which is present to us,” in this instance, is the visual phenomenon tha
we are experiencing generally and the work of art of the artist and the ar
product of the client in art therapy specifically. The “work of art” displaysan integral character; the “art product” (the construction of a client, a trou
bled person undergoing art therapy), a character the structural compromis
of which does not allow its assessment as work of art. The physiognomy o
the work of art, in the words of Gestalt psychology, is “good;” the physiognomy
of the art product, not “good.” “Good” for Gestalt psychologists is defined
by the Law of Prägnanz, the guiding principle in the investigation of organization
This principle guiding Gestalt psychologists in their investigation of “orga
nization,” Koffka (1935), another Gestalt psychologist, tells us,
was introduced by Wertheimer, who called it the Law of Prägnanz. It can
briefly be formulated like this: psychological organization will always be
as “good” as the prevailing conditions allow. In this definition the term
“good” is undefined. It embraces such properties as regularity, symmetry,
simplicity and others . . . (p. 110)
Insofar as physiognomy is understood as meaning the structural specification
of the phenomenon in its expressiveness, it will be evident to the viewer tha
the work of art is good because of its organization, i.e., the “regularity, sym
metry, and simplicity” and also composition and balance of its component
of form. Among components of visual form are line, shape, and color. To thet th i t d f th li t’ t d t i fl t d i
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Four aspects of Arnheim and Gestalt psychology’s considerations on per
ception and art require examination for the relationship of Arnheim to the
phenomenology of physiognomy. They are the naturalism of Gestalt psy
chology, the distinction between expression and physiognomy, Gestalt psy
chology’s concern with structure, and perceptual concepts.
The Naturalism of Gestalt Psychology
The naturalism of Arnheim’s Gestalt psychological assumptions reveals itsel
in his comments on meaning in artworks.
Every painting or sculpture carries meaning. Whether representational or
“abstract,” it is “about something;” it is a statement about the nature of ourexistence. Similarly, a useful object, such as a building or a teapot, inter-
prets its function to the eyes. The simplicity of such objects, therefore, involves
not only their visual appearance in and by itself, but also the relation between
the image seen and the statement it is intended to convey. (p. 62)
In this quotation, the artwork is a carrier of a meaning about something, a
statement “about” existence. The phenomenon before us, as Arnheim presents it, implicates an objectivist relation between its image (physiognomy
on the one hand, and an intended statement over and beyond that image—
physiognomy—on the other hand. Arnheim does not own to the image being
the meaning. Here, his comments reflect the constraints of naturalism on
insight into intentionality, and also its constraints on the articulation of the
understanding and development of perceptual processes.
The above criticism on Arnheim’s naturalism follows upon Merleau-Ponty’s
critical comments on Gestalt theory in the context of distance perception in
which he points out,
Gestalt theory has clearly shown that the alleged signs of distance . . . are
expressly known only in an analytic or reflective perception which turns
away from the object to its mode of presentation, and that we do not gothrough these stages in knowing distances. (1962, p. 47)
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be causes of this perception” (p. 47). We are back, Merleau-Ponty tells us, “in
an explanatory psychology, the ideal of which has never been abandoned by
Gestalt psychology, because, as psychology, it has never broken with natu
ralism. But by this very fact it betrays its own descriptions” (p. 47). That effor
after explanation and that naturalism, from which it derives, are explicit in
Arnheim’s references to the work of art being the carrier of a statement abousomething.
Along with his vigilance with respect to assumptions and the language
reflective of assumptions, Merleau-Ponty (1962) acknowledges and confirm
the Gestalt perspective on the perceptual experience of the visual field:
It is precisely Gestalt psychology which has brought home to us the tensionswhich run like lines of force across the visual field and the system: own
body-world, and which breathe into it a secret and magic life by exerting
here and there forces of distortion, contraction and expansion. (pp. 48-49)
One cannot say that the affinity in the relationship between Gestalt theory
and phenomenology is sibling in character. However, one has to allow a com
patibility of observations and visual analysis on the part of Gestalt psychologists to an assessment and incorporation of significant parts of its corpus o
research within overall phenomenology.
Arnheim on Expression and Physiognomy
Arnheim (1966) does not offer precise distinction between physiognomy and
expression. The imprecision manifests in the following words in which heapprovingly quotes from Erich von Hornbostel:
He (von Hornbostel) states that what the senses have in common is more
important than their differences. This means that “physiognomic” or expres-
sive qualities, largely independent of the particular medium in which they
appear, are probably much more basic in perceptual experience than those
that psychologists were accustomed to consider as primary: hue, bright-ness pitch, size, shape, etc.. The poet, then in freely connecting phenomena
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ness, pitch, size, shape, etc..” The difficulty here is twofold; first, the syn
onymy between physiognomy and expressiveness, which is acceptable to
Arnheim, and second, the assignment of formal elements of visual experi
ence (hue, brightness, pitch, size, shape, etc., all of which are constituents in
the organization of perception according to Gestalt psychology) to a less basic
status in the perceptual experience. It is suggested in this paper that expressiveness (or expression) is “a fundamental trait of human perception” (if no
the fundamental trait of human perception), and it is also offered that phys-
iognomy is the specification of the expressiveness through the laws of per
ceptual organization that disclose themselves in the phenomenon that is being
experienced. Such a clarification disestablishes the synonymy, and at the same
time it maintains the equal “basic-ness” of both physiognomy and expression. Physiognomy is the expressiveness of a specific phenomenon.
Arnheim’s discussion of expression and physiognomy exhibits further lack
of clarity. In another place, he states that
the observations of primitives [sic] and children cited by H. Werner and
Köhler indicate that “physiognomic qualities” as Werner calls them, are
even more directly perceived than the “geometric-technical” qualities of
size, shape, or movement. Expression seems to be the primary content of
perception. (p. 63)
Arnheim once again is articulating synonymy between expression and phys
iognomy, as well as diminishment of the basic character of the laws of per
ceptual organization. There is confusion with respect to the inherence and
priority of organization in the perceptual experience. Arnheim has inadvertently betrayed the Gestalt views on perception that he avows. Again, the
distinction between physiognomy and expression offered in this article resolves
the confusion.
In the page before the above quotation, Arnheim suggests, “the perception
of shape, movement, etc. may convey to an observer the direct experience of
an expression that is structurally similar to the organization of the observedti l tt ” ( 62) H i b k th G t lti t t k Sh kl d thi
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as described above. Were Arnheim to have unpacked the significance of hi
sentence and to develop its thought, it is a good bet that he would have
arrived at the distinction between physiognomy and expression that thi
paper presents.
Lastly, Arnheim (1966) declares thatGestalt psychologists extend the range of expressive phenomena beyond
this limit (i.e., the circumscription of expressiveness and physiognomy to
human beings). . . . they consider it indispensable to speak also of the expres-
sion conveyed by inanimate objects, such as mountains, clouds, sirens,
machines. (p. 52)
At this point, Arnheim and Gestalt psychologists approach the phenomenological consideration of intentionality and the nexus between subjectivity and
world implied in that nexus that Merleau-Ponty (1962) presents us.
This disclosure of an immanent or incipient significance in the living body
extends, as we shall see, to the whole sensible world, and our gaze, prompted
by the experience of our own body, will discover in all other “objects” the
miracle of expression. (p. 197, italics added)
Structures
Structures include the components of line, shape, color, movement (as wel
as overall composition and balance) as visually experienced in the phenom
enon. Arnheim declares that
overall structural features are the primary data of perception, so that tri-
angularity is not a late product of intellectual abstraction, but a direct and
more elementary experience than the recording of individual detail. . . . I
shall presently show that this psychological discovery is of decisive impor-
tance for the understanding of artistic form. (p. 45)
The perceptual process in its initiation arrives at the essence of that which i
experiences. This has been accomplished through the experience of the phys
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In the Gestalt psychology tradition of articulating perceptual organization
and the laws of perceptual organization, “structure” is a key word. Structure
is the explicit statement of organization. For phenomenologists, the experience
of structure in a phenomenon is the disclosure of its essence, its meaning. The
appositeness of the Gestalt psychology position and of the phenomenologica
position is notable.
The mutuality between Gestalt psychology and phenomenology shows itsel
further in a forceful observation on the distinction between the “elements”
of a visual image and the “structural features” of it. Arnheim says
If I increase the number of equally spaced radii drawn in a circle from ten
to twenty, the number of elements has increased but the number of struc-tural features is unchanged; for whatever the number of radii, one distance
and one angle are sufficient to describe the build of the whole. (p. 57)
In an affirmation of the essentially qualitative character of structure and its
unavailability to reduction to division into equal parts (really, “sections”)
furthermore, Arnheim declares,
To partition by mere amount or number is to ignore structure. No otherprocedure is available, of course, when structure is absent. Any section of
the blue sky is as good as any other. But the subdivision of a sculpture is
not arbitrary, even though as a physical object it may be dismantled into
any kind of section for shipping purposes. (p. 77)
One can appreciate that analysis of works of art progresses through experi
ence of the physiognomy and that that experience is not had by way of pieces by way of visually sectioning the work. It is direct and immediate. The “look”
of a fine work of art, the physiognomy of the whole painting or statue, catche
the eye of the appreciator of it. In the visual experience of a client’s art prod
uct, the dissonance of a detail or an irregularity of perceptual organization
seizes the eye of the art therapist.
The visual response of the appreciator to the work of art registers the functional significance of the parts of the work in relationship to each other and
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to the art—the structural components of the whole). “Form” achieves the
communication of “content.” It achieves that communication in the work o
art through submergence “in the statement, in the effect.” Arnheim point
out that “good form does not show” (1966, p. 10).
The art therapist’s alert eye grips the art product’s physiognomy and theflawed perceptual organization of it. She experiences visually the impaired
functional significance of parts to each other and to the whole of the art prod
uct. The physiognomy of it presents a visual pathology to the art therapis
and this conduces to the psychological review of clinical content communi
cated through the physiognomy (the perceptual organization of structura
components). To maintain purchase on the slippery slope of interpretation
the review of the clinical content—Gestaltists would maintain—should remaintethered to perceptual organization.
In his discussion of aspects of Gestalt psychology and the role of “functiona
significance” of parts within the whole, Aron Gurwitsch (1966) states emphat
ically that the “whole” is qualitatively different from the “sum.” The “sum”
is but an aggregate the elements of which do not relate functionally significantly
to each other or to the “sum.”
In fact, as regards a sum, if one member of it is modified, it is that member
alone which is concerned, the other members remaining what they have
been, and the sum itself is at the very most decreased or increased by one
unit. (p. 26)
It is physiognomy that presents the meaning of the phenomenon, whethework of art or art product. The physiognomy of the phenomenon is a com
munication of integralness or pathology of the phenomenon, a communica
tion of whether its “functional significance” works.
Perceptual Concepts
Arnheim’s comments on “perceptual concepts” aspire to the phenomenological proposal of intentionality. Arnheim refers to “perceptual concepts” a
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striking similarity between the elementary activities of the senses and the
higher ones of thinking or reasoning. . . . It seems now that the same mech-
anisms operate on both the perceptual and the intellectual level, so that
terms like concept, judgment, logic, abstraction, conclusion, computation,
are needed in describing the work of the senses. (p. 46)
What is needed here is the phenomenology of the “intentional arc” as Merleau-
Ponty describes it:
. . . that the life of consciousness—cognitive life, the life of desire or per-
ceptual life—is subtended by an “intentional arc” which projects round
about us our past, our future, our human setting, our physical, ideological
and moral situation, or rather which results in our being situated in all these
respects. It is this intentional arc which brings about the unity of the senses,
of intelligence, of sensibility and motility. And it is this which “goes limp”
in illness. (p. 136)
The intentional arc “goes limp” in illness. The allusion here to illness lobbies
for comments on integral and pathological visual perceptual organizations
From this mention of integral and pathological visual perceptual organiza
tions, a segue avails itself to the discussion of Mala Betensky’s work in art
therapy.
Mala Betensky
The title of Mala G. Betensky’s book which is the primary reference to her
relevant work for this article is What Do You See?: Phenomenology of Therapeutic
Art Expression (1995). Betensky, a psychologist in private practice, had incor-
porated the use of art within her psychotherapy with children and adoles
cents. She presented her findings and thoughts on such use in her earlier
book, Self-Discovery Through Self-expression (1973). It is the more recent book
that presents her understanding of phenomenology and its method for the
use of art in psychotherapy. In review of Betensky’s work, three concernssurface: her phenomenology, her references to structure in visual experiences
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Betensky’s Phenomenology
Specifically, Betensky’s engagement of phenomenology in her work in gen
eral, and her references to Amedeo Giorgi’s phenomenological psychologica
methodology in particular, require scrutiny. Betensky has fitted phenome
nology to art therapy in her “practicing the synthesis (of phenomenologywith Arnheim’s psychology of art, psychotherapy, the history of ideas, and
art) and studying other approaches in art therapy and in psychotherapy”
(1995, pp. 4-5). In her adaptation of phenomenology to art therapy, Betensky
has established, as she describes it, “a synthesis of concepts in phenomenol
ogy and Gestalt principles of expression and perception” (p. 66). The ques
tion is whether synthesis of phenomenology and “gestalt principles o
expression and perception” is possible.
As we know from the analyses of Merleau-Ponty, such synthesis is not pos
sible. The assumptions of phenomenology and the naturalism of Gestalt psy
chology are exclusionary of each other. Betensky does not address the issue
The attempted integration is not really a synthesis. It is syncretism. It is the
unsuccessful fusion of systems of thought, the assumptions of which are
incompatible to each other.
The failure of the attempted synthesis does not compromise Betensky’s gen
uine and successful efforts and the value of her commitment. Her work
deserves serious attention. Anyone—layperson, phenomenologist, or art ther
apist—would appreciate the commitment of Betensky to her work and the
efficacy and creative strategies of that work as she has presented it. That ha
to be said as context for the following comments first on Betensky’s refer
ences to Amedeo Giorgi’s method and then to her understanding of phe
nomenological intentionality and intuiting.
Betensky says in reference to Part IV of her 1995 book that a special feature
of that part’s two chapters on art expression for art therapy is “a method fo
qualitative diagnostics which benefited from Amedeo Giorgi’s concepts o
phenomenological research” (p. xii). Specifically, Betensky attests to her adop
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field. Nor should the rephrasing become an interpretation of the naive descrip
tion according to any pre-conceived theory” (p. 149).
In the articulation of the research design of his method, Giorgi indicates the
procedure of explication of the structure of the phenomenon being experi
enced out of the determination of the naïve description meaning units andtheir transformation into the language of the discipline of the researcher. Free
imaginative variation, epoché, “meaning units,” and intentional analysis in
the search for structures, essences and meanings; all of these concerns of the
phenomenological method are set forth methodically by Giorgi (1985; Giorg
and Giorgi, 2003). Betensky does not present the detailed character of her
enactment of phenomenological analysis. One assumes that Betensky in her
adaptation of Giorgi’s method and in her sensitivity to phenomenology has
proceeded implicitly in this context.
In her work, she may assume the steps of the full process of the phenome-
nological method; in the context of research, she would have to demonstrate
the explication of them. That is the only way Betensky’s practice of phe
nomenology in art therapy can be judged a praxis of the phenomenologicaperspective. The most serious reservation that the writer of this article has
about Betensky’s adoption of Giorgi’s method, however, is the absence o
review of assumptions of phenomenology vis-à-vis assumptions of Gestal
psychology. Giorgi’s work is defined by the phenomenology of Edmund
Husserl and by that of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It excludes the naturalistic
assumptions of the Gestaltists.
Reservation has also to be expressed about Betensky’s use of the phenome
nological term “intentionality,” and some comment has to be made about her
understanding of phenomenological “intuition.” With respect to “intention
ality,” Betensky says
. . . when I trained my eyes to look with openness and with intention at the
object of my sight, I began to see things in that object that I had not seenbefore Slowly I began to understand the truth in Merleau-Ponty’s state-
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In the above quotation, Betensky uses the phrase “seeing with intentional
ity.” It seems that her usage of the word “intentionality” there is in the sense
of “intentness” or “focusing.” That is not the understanding of the word
“intentionality” in phenomenology. In phenomenology, the word has a specific
philosophical usage and context the complexity and subtlety of which are
not reducible to “intentness” or “focusing.” It is not difficult to accept tha“intentness” (or “focusing”) delivers up a richness of meaning denied to the
“look” that does not penetrate, does not inhabit the object (as Merleau-Ponty
puts it). Also, a lived appreciation of phenomenological intentionality could
only intensify the visual experience of a client’s art product whether the expe
rience is being had by the client or by the therapist. Nevertheless, there
remains the distinction between phenomenological intentionality and “intentionality” understood as “intentness” or “focusing.”
With respect to “the phenomenological concept called intuiting” (her italics)
Betensky defines it as
a concentrated effort of the client to carry out the double task of experi-
encing things intensely, and seeing those things in shapes. This can be likened
to being immersed in a certain state of mind, and seeing oneself immersed
in it. (p. 46)
Edmund Husserl (1913/1998), the father of phenomenology, refers to “intu
ition” thus:
The presentive intuition [ gebende Anschauung] belonging to the first, the “nat-
ural” sphere of cognition and to all sciences of that sphere, is natural expe-rience; and the <natural> experience that is presentive of something originarily
is perception, the word being understood in the ordinary sense. To have
something real given originarily and “attentively to perceive” and “experi-
ence” it in an intuiting simpliciter are one and the same. (pp. 5-6)
Betensky’s definition of phenomenological “intuiting” approximates to Husserl’
definition of it—perhaps she would claim that it coincides with it. Hespecification of “seeing those things in shapes” and “being immersed in a
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References to Structure
The concepts of Gestalt psychology on visual structure organization direc
Betensky’s examination of clients’ art products. She is explicit about this
throughout her book. It is evident in her clarification of the distinction between
the work of art that is truly creative on the one hand, and the artwork thatis reflective of the subjectivity of a client in art therapy on the other hand, as
follows:
In art, however, artists’ work is subject to aesthetic standards such as orga-
nization, balance and rhythm, a variety of related components rich with
their properties, and expression In art therapy, we do consider organization
and surface properties, but not primarily as aesthetic criteria. Even the poorestorganization is noticed and accepted as part of self, or as a moment in the
state of being of the artmaker; that is, as expression of his inner universe.
(p. 29, italics added)
Betensky’s words resonate both to the Gestalt psychological “laws of per
ceptual organization” and to Arnheim’s Gestalt psychological exposition o
structures of the visual experience. Structures of organization, balance andrhythm, and other characteristics define both the artists’ works of art and the
art therapy clients’ artworks. In the former, the success and integral definition
of the structures transcend the artist; in the latter, the structures disclose symp
toms of the clients’ disease with his or her world. The artwork of the clien
does not transcend the client. Its physiognomy discloses the physiognomy
of the client’s world, both the parts of that world that are searching for whole-
ness and the parts dissonant to the configuration of wholeness. There is disturbance of “functional significance” of the parts of the client’s art produc
in relation to each other and in relation to the whole of the art product. It is
the suggestion of pathology.
Commenting on abstract shapes, Betensky further distinguishes between the
“work of art” of the artist and the “art product” of the client:
The difference lies, perhaps, in the universality of the artist’s art expression,
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Discernment of the art product’s pathological organization through its phys
iognomy by both the art therapist and the client focuses on structural com
ponents of that organization. Betensky leans strongly on Gestalt psychologica
analyses of the structural components of line, shape, color, and motion.
As in art, so in art therapy, aspects of universal or subjective human expe-rience find their expression in lines expressive of moods; in colours (sic)
expressive of emotions; in shapes expressive of weight, which also sym-
bolize the world; and in motion, stance or gesture expressive of vitality and
feeling about self, and aliveness. (pp. 29-30)
Through lines gone awry, colors either saturated or blended or no color
when the option for them is present, shapes whose weight and direction puzzle or worry, or “movement” diffused or corralled or suppressed; the phy
siognomy of the client’s art work (i.e., the structural organization of the whole
piece that is the specification of the art product’s expressiveness) communi
cates the structure of the client’s parts-of-self that direct to wholeness and
the parts that present pathology.
Therapeutic Threshold
Betensky declares that “expression permeates the client’s art work” and, she
continues, “it is expression that carries and conveys meaning. And it is in
expression that we find a potential source of therapy and change, for the ar
therapy actually occurs in art expression” (p. 29).
Betensky says further that as “observers,” clients seetheir art products as visual percepts. The interaction between percept and
personality helped the artmakers-turned-observers (in her work with them)
grasp meaningful connections between their art products and aspects of
self, and that is how moments of self-discovery occurred. (p. 43)
This has rich therapeutic implications of which Betensky is fully aware and
which she promotes. Experiencing the phenomenon of one’s own art product before oneself the client submits to a prereflective and a reflective pos
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the artist may not experience a dimension of self that is dissonant to the
whole of the self, and it is not to say that the client may not at times reach
levels of art in the art product.
The client’s experience is of the physiognomy of a construction that has been
contingent on that person’s own effort. Mobilization of energies and articu-lation of them outward onto the canvas or into whatever is the medium (e.g.
pigments, pencil, clay, wood, collage material) is required. The gestures, the
physiognomy, have the familiarity of intimacy. The client is seeing and expe-
riencing the gestures, the physiognomy, of himself or herself as he or she has
limned the gestures and physiognomy of the image presented in pigment
clay, paper material, or whatever constitutes the medium.
Betensky’s identification of “art expression,” the art product, as the point a
which therapy takes place, echoes an observation that Bernard I. Levy in his
Foreword to Betensky’s 1973 book had made, “indeed, Dr. Betensky makes
clear her emphasis on the use of art as communication rather than on the
creative use of art, by identifying her work as art psychotherapy” (p. viii)
Implicitly, the focus on “art expression” (i.e., the art product) as the thera
peutic threshold in her 1995 book continues Betensky’s use of “art as com
munication” that Levy had observed in 1973.
Parenthetically, the statement, “for the art therapy actually occurs in art expres-
sion,” positions the art therapy work of Betensky on the side of the art produc
(“artwork” as she terms it) as the essential part of the therapeutic process
Betensky, therefore, aligns with Margaret Naumburg’s identification withwhat Malchiodi (1998) terms “product-oriented philosophy” (p. 36). A
the same time, Betensky does not align with Naumburg’s psychoanalytica
orientation.
Conclusions on Betensky’s Work
Despite the efficacy of her procedures, and that efficacy is certainly obviousin the case studies reported in both of her books, Betensky’s implementation
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of it with Gestalt psychology and by the unexamined assumptions of differ
ent approaches (no matter how much affinity there exists among them in cer
tain respects) that she assembles in her overall art therapy project.
At the same time, Betensky’s work stirs the phenomenologist who would
bring to bear the full phenomenological psychological method that AmedeoGiorgi has developed. Application of the method on both the experience o
making art (the artistic process) and of appreciating art (the aesthetic expe
rience), in fact, has been done. The references here are to “works of art” by
artists—not art products by clients.
Giorgi himself (1984) did a phenomenological psychological analysis of the
artistic process.Two artists were used as subjects. . . . Both subjects were interviewed in the
presence of their artworks, and the transcriptions of these interviews served
as the raw data of the study.
The results were presented in terms of a Fundamental Description and
Psychological Structure of the artistic process for each artist as well as a
psychological structure of common aspects of the artistic process manifested by the two subjects of this study. . . . Psychologically, the artistic process is
a partially conscious, freely felt, spontaneously lived, but generally struc-
tured open-ended, risk-taking aesthetic activity of an embodied subject
resulting in an artwork. (p. 36)
Giorgi’s study of the artistic process of the (nonclient) artist suggests a phe
nomenological study of the artmaking process of the client. That is to sayGiorgi’s focus on the process of creating art, in correspondence, for example
to Edith Kramer’s focus on the process of the client’s making artwork as agency
of therapy, could model a phenomenological psychology of the experience
of that making.
(Edith Kramer—another art therapist and a pioneer in the field certainly
acknowledges the completed art product as no less constitutive of the healing that comes from art therapy (2000 p 38) She does not however con
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Cloonan (a.k.a. Ó Cluanáin), in coda to Giorgi’s work on the artistic process
did a phenomenological analysis of the aesthetic process. He invited his par
ticipant to view and to report her experiences of one of the two paintings
that Giorgi had employed in his study. His finding on the general structure
of aesthetic process was that among its constituents were “anticipation of the
painting; a primary, perceptual involvement with the painting’s sensory qualities and associated ‘feelings’ with some sensory aspect dominant; and a per-
ceived (harmonious or nonharmonious or whatever) ensemble of the sensory
characteristics of it” (Ó Cluanáin, 1984, p. 63). This study focusing on the aes-
thetic process (of the nonclient experiencing the work of art of the artist) cor
responds to Betensky’s focus on the client and art therapist experiencing the
client’s finished art product. At that end of it, therefore, Ó Cluanáin’s studymight model a phenomenological psychology of the client and art therapist’s
experiences of the client’s finished art product.
Extension of the use of the phenomenological psychological method devel
oped by Giorgi to the experiences of clients, both their process-making
experiences and their perceptual physiognomic experiences of the finished
art product, is a desiderandum. A phenomenological research programwould bring a dimension of the therapeutic processes in art therapy as
analyzed phenomenologically to Betensky’s work as she has practiced i
phenomenologically.
Conclusion
It was pointed out that the topic of physiognomy has attracted considerationthrough the past 50 years of psychological history. Its position in contemporary
mainstream psychology, however, is marginal. Currently, issues in statistics
and in its application to research results, have raised concern for first “taking
a look at the data.” The level of theoretical context for this concern of exper
imental psychology in a certain sense is flush to a lived, concrete level in which
physiognomy is central and not marginal. This is the level of phenomenologyas it has been presented by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Gestalt psychology and
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To be ill means to the patient in the first place a new, sick physiognomy of
the world. . . . The patient is ill, this means at once that the world is ill; while
telling what his world looks like, he tells us without prevarication, without
any mistake, how he is himself. (p. 35)
In art therapy, the expressiveness of clients’ art products, their particulaphysiognomies, is telling us about the patient “how he is himself.” The pro
motion of the significance of such physiognomy balances the skepticism o
what is the face of things in the well world as well as in the troubled world
“Face” does have a “value.”
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