Rudolf Arnheim

Who was Rudolf Arnheim?

Rudolf Arnheim was a German-born author, art and film theorist, and perceptual psychologist. He learned Gestalt psychology from studying under Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler at the University of Berlin and applied it to art. His major books are Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, Visual Thinking, and The Power of the Center: A Study of Composition in the Visual Arts, but it is Art and Visual Perception for which he was most widely known. Revised, enlarged and published as a new version in 1974, it has been translated into fourteen languages. He lived in Germany, Italy, England, and America. Most notably, he taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Harvard University, and the University of Michigan. He has greatly influenced art history and psychology in America.