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



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



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



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.



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



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.



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



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



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



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



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)



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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-



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



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,



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



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



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



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



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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Cloonan, Fenomenología de La Fisiognomia

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